Subway's Poor Portmanteau Choice

Am I the only one who has a problem with the name of Subway's new menu item?

There are just too many options for the phonetic realization of the neologism.

To start with, where are the syllable breaks? Is it fla/ti/za or flat/iz/a? Which syllable should be stressed? Also, if it is made to rhyme with pizza, it sounds like either fla/teets/a or flat/eets/a, depending on the syllable break.

I get that it is a portmanteau of flatbread + pizza. But it sure is a phonetically problematic portmanteau.

The Sound and the Shapey - Conclusion

The results of the poll from the post, The Sound and the Shapey -

The blue shape is a kiki and the green shape is a bouba. 91.8%

The results of the poll from the post, The Sound and the Shapey 2 -

The shape on the left is a takete, and the shape on the right is a maluma. 91.3%

The overall results of both polls in the previously mentioned posts illustrate what is called the Bouba-Kiki Effect; that is, the mapping of certain shapes with certain speech sounds is not an arbitrary one.

Jessica Love at The American Scholar explains that, "across multiple studies, with participants from different cultures, boubas (and other words formed with the so-called 'rounded' vowels in boo or bow) are linked to smooth, curvaceous objects, while kikis (and similar words) are associated with jagged angles and objects sharp to the touch."

The Bouba-Kiki Effect is sometimes considered a form of synesthesia, which is defined by Merriam-Webster as follows:

1 : a concomitant sensation; especially : a subjective sensation or image of a sense (as of color) other than the one (as of sound) being stimulated 2 : the condition marked by the experience of such sensations

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Comments from the previous posts.

From idiomatico: "Sounds in which you have to round yours lips ("b") suggest rounded forms in any language. It's something that I smell."

- I love the way he extended the synesthesia aspect.

From Marcelo García Facal:  "There has been much literature about the effect of "defaults", meaning, how the fact that the option "The blue shape is a kiki and the green shape is a bouba." is chosen by default has an effect on the choice respondents finally make."

- This is the reason I posted a different version of the poll in The Sound and the Shapey 2. 

Interestingly, the results were still very similar.

The Sound and the Shapey 2

A variation of last week's post regarding the mapping between speech sounds and the visual shape of objects.

One of the above shapes is a takete and one is a maluma; which is which?

Please participate in the following poll only if you are not familiar with the experiment. There is not a right or wrong answer. Again, no cheating, please (i.e. no google searches). I will reveal more about the experiment later in the week.
  
Special note: There were a some comments for last week's post that I did not publish because they might have given something away. I will mention the comments from idiomatico and Marcelo García Facal in my follow up post.

The Sound and the Shapey

The following shapes were used in a well-known psychological experiment regarding the mapping between speech sounds and the visual shape of objects. The original experiment was conducted in the late 1920s; it has been repeated since then with slight variations.

I have included a poll below to see what my readers think. There is not a right or wrong answer.

Please participate only if you are not familiar with the experiment. Also, no cheating, please (i.e. no google image searches).

I will reveal more about the experiment next week.

Banging a Left in Boston

Thankfully, I did not have to "bang a left" while visiting Boston this past week; I left all the driving to the expertise of the hacks (that way I didn't have to "pahk" a car either). I have no problem "hanging a left" or parking in Detroit but driving in Boston is a whole different animal. 

Did I mention the dialect?

Here are some examples of phonetic differences between Boston and other American dialects from Boston English:

Word	Boston	Standard American	Northern Cities
pack	[æ]	[æ]	[eæ]
cop			[a]
dawn
load	[o]	[ow]	[o]
food	[u]	[uw]	[u]

	Word	Boston	Standard American
Vowel lengthens, different quality	bar
	burr
/r/ replaced by schwa	bore
	beer
	bear

Here is A Dialect Map of American English

The Boston English site also includes details about phonology and The Wicked Good Guide to Boston English includes information about the Boston lexicon.

It was a wonderful trip, no Boston Coolers to be found though.

Determining the Determiner

I noticed these two images going around as "shares" on Facebook today.

Of course it had to be the Texas image that included the "Test Your Knowledge..." title.

Perhaps 94.5 The Buzz (the original poster of the image) should test their knowledge.

The choice of determiner is based on the initial sound of the word that follows it not whether or not the following word starts with a consonant or vowel.

Remember the rule - always use "a" before a word that begins with a consonant sound and "an" before a word that begins with a vowel sound.

Searching for Sugar Man's Lyrics

The movie, the story it told, and the music were all incredible. I only wish I had learned of Rodríguez before he played at a local venue this past November; I would have been there for sure.

The first thing I did after watching this outstanding, Oscar-nominated documentary was order the soundtrack. And I have been listening to it non-stop since I received it. I am in awe of Rodríguez's way with words.

When listening to the song Cause, the following lyrics stood out to me immediately.

Cause my heart's become a crooked hotel 
full of /ru:mɚz/

The IPA is mine because I didn't want to spoil the fun with the way the word was spelled in the lyrics from the CD.

What do you think?


Roomers or rumors? Both would work.

Interestingly, the word is spelt with the British spelling rumours in the CD insert.

Another song on the disc with lyrics that are worth noting is This is not a song, it's an outburst: or, the establishment blues. I love the metaphoric extension in the lyrics.

Woke up this morning with an ache
in my head
I splashed on my clothes as I spilled
out of bed

I could go on and on with examples but I urge you to check out the movie and music for yourself.

Image via IMDB

Phonetics, Numbers and Memory

Where do phonetics, numbers and memory meet?

The answer to the question from last week's post Happy Sinuous Idiom - A New Year's Quiz is The Major System.

The following is excerpted from the Wikipedia page titled Mnemonic major system:

The Major System (also called the phonetic number system, phonetic mnemonic system, or Herigone's mnemonic system) is a mnemonic technique used to aid in memorizing numbers.

The system works by converting numbers into consonant sounds, then into words by adding vowels. The system works on the principle that images can be remembered more easily than numbers.

Each numeral is associated with one or more consonants. Vowels and the consonants w, h, y and x are ignored. These can be used as "fillers" to make sensible words from the resulting consonant sequences. The most popular mapping is:

Numeral	Associated Consonants	Mnemonic
0	s, z, soft c	"z" is the first letter of zero. The other letters have a similar sound.
1	t, d	t & d have one downstroke and sound similar (some variant systems include "th")
2	n	n has two downstrokes
3	m	M has three downstrokes and looks like a "3" on its side
4	r	last letter of four, also 4 and R are almost mirror images of each other
5	l	L is the Roman Numeral for 50
6	sh, j, soft "ch", dg, zh, soft "g"	a script j has a lower loop / g is almost a 6 rotated
7	k, hard c, hard g, hard "ch", q, qu	capital K "contains" two sevens (some variant systems include "ng")
8	f, v	script f resembles a figure-8. V sounds similar.
9	p, b	p is a mirror-image 9. b sounds similar and resembles a 9 rolled around
Unassigned	Vowel sounds, w,h,y,x	These can be used anywhere without changing a word's number value

The groups of similar sounds and the rules for applying the mappings are almost always fixed, but other hooks and mappings can be used as long as the person using the system can remember them and apply them consistently. The magician Derren Brown, for instance, chooses the number 5 to map to the f and v sounds because the word 'five' uses both of those sounds.

Each numeral maps to a set of similar sounds with similar mouth and tongue positions. The link is phonetic, that is to say, it is the consonant sounds that matter, not the spelling. Therefore a word like action would encode the number 762 (k-ch-n), not 712 (k-t-n); and ghost would be 701 (g-z-t), while, because the gh in enough is pronounced like an f, the word enough encodes the number 28 (n-f). Similarly, double letters are disregarded. The word missile is mapped to 305 (m-z-l), not 3005 (m-z-z-l). To encode 3005 one would use something like mossy sail. Often the mapping is compact. Hindquarters, for example, translates unambiguously to 2174140 (n-d-qu-r-t-r-z), which amounts to 7 digits encoded by 8 letters, and can be easily visualized.

I learned about the Major System while reading the book Fooling Houdini by Alex Stone. This outstanding, non-fiction book is subtitled: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks and the Hidden Powers of the Mind. I highly recommend it to geeks and non-geeks alike. It is a fascinating and enjoyable read written in a very entertaining and informative style. 

For more fun with the Major System check out the Phonetic Mnemonic Major Memory System Database. It contains 32,320 unique keywords for 13,221 numbers.

Happy Sinuous Idiom - A New Year's Quiz

Happy Science Wisdom 

Happy Ions Teem 

Happy Knees Esteem 

Happy Noisy Dime 

Happy Nice Theme

Where do phonetics, numbers and memory meet?

Answers are welcome in comments.

Image credits here.

I'd Like a Syllable and an India Ale, Please

I'm not really in the mood for a Samuel Smith's, so...

make it a Wig Top IA.

As explained at Wikipedia - India Pale Ale or IPA is a beer style within the broader category of pale ale. It was first brewed in England in the 19th century. The first known use of "India pale ale" is an advertisement in the Liverpool Mercury in 1835. It was also referred to as "pale ale as prepared for India", "India Ale", "pale India ale" or "pale export India ale".

While IA may not be a common initialism for the beer style, I can't help but think about beer whenever I pass the above pictured store due to the familiarity of IPA as an initialism combined with the unusual bullet point insertions in the store's name and the recent influx of oddly named beers.

Yellowpages.com lists the store's name as Wigtopia Beauty Supply. Even without the addition of "beauty supply", when the bullet points are removed it is much more clear that the store name is meant to be verbalized as one word with syllable breaks like so: /wɪg.to.pi:ʌ/. This was also confirmed when I phoned the store and the clerk answered as such.

Perhaps the store owners designed the signage to be phonetically playful. Wigs do top the head and they probably do sell what they consider to be the ideal wigs, thus: /wɪg.tɑp.i:ʌ/.

Regardless, I can't do it; I will continue to read the store name as two words and an initialism: /wɪg tɑp aɪ eɪ/.

India Ale image here
Wig Top image from Yelp 

Bread Brands and Phonetics

Today at the grocery store I came across a brand of bread of which I had never before seen or heard.

My first thought upon seeing the bread was, "who, on God's green earth, would name their bread after sleazy woman?"

bim·bo 
n. pl. bim·bos
1. Slang A woman regarded as vacuous or as having an exaggerated interest in her sexual appeal.
2. Slang A vacuous person: "a male bimbo ... who even has to be tutored ... in the clichés that comprise the basic interview" (George F. Will).
bimbo
n. pl. -bos, -boes
1. an attractive but empty-headed young woman
2. a fellow; person esp a foolish one
The Free Dictionary

It wasn't until I turned the loaf over that I realized the brand's first vowel is meant to be pronounced as /i:/ and not /I/.

When I did a bit of research, I was surprised to see that Bimbo Bakeries USA owns brands that include: Arnold, Boboli, Entenmann's, Sara Lee, Thomas' and more.

How had I never heard of Bimbo Bakeries if they own all of these brands that I purchase on a regular basis?

Their website's history link provides the answer; it wasn't until the 2000s that they began acquiring other companies that owned the brands with which I am familiar in Michigan.

In all fairness, the word bimbo does have a different definition and pronunciation in Italy where the parent company originated.

bimbo
n. Italy,
"Bimbo" is a common nice word, used as a diminutive of (male) child. Child = Bambino = Bimbo.

For US marketing purposes, however, I would think the company would use a different name for their bakery products.

A Not So Trivial /ʌ/

He has been the host of a popular television game show since 1984 and is said to be contemplating retirement in the next two years.

Who is Alex Trebek?

Or should I say...Who is Alex Trebek-Ah?

I have been noticing more and more recently that when it comes to trivia games there seems to be a dialectical affectation exhibited by emcees.

I have been a Jeopardy viewer for as long as I can remember and it is only lately that I noticed Alex Trebek adding what I would call an "ah-suffix" to consonant final words when he is giving a question that was missed by the contestants. And it is not just Alex Trebek that does this (which might explain why I have noticed it more). My husband and I often play trivia at some local restaurants and have experienced several emcees that have the same affectation (e.g., "The correct answer is...game shows-Ah."). I have no idea if they are emulating Trebek or if it is part of their trivia training. Either way, it must be that the phenomenon is-Ah trending-Ah in the trivia world or I just wasn't as attentive prior to the last few months-Ah.

Phonetically, the sound could be transcribed as either /ʌ/ or /ɒ/ depending on the speaker's dialect. 

Image credits.

Hard Luck Word Choice

As part of a vodka promotion, these coozies were given out at one of our local watering holes last week.

Something about the rhyming slogan is all over the floor for me.

If a vodka is so wonderfully flavored, I would think that people would want to "swill it" not "spill it".

swill:
v.tr. 1. To drink greedily or grossly.
v.intr. To drink or eat greedily or to excess.

Okay, maybe it is bartender lingo for pouring (i.e., "spill some of that vodka into my glass, please."), but I like the sound of "swill" better anyhow; its manner isn't stopped up.

Linguistics:√ Fun:√

I love these post-it notes that came with a book I ordered. Too bad they don't sell them; I would order a carton.

And check out these fun posters from the same company

Images from Cascadilla Press

Random Linguistics Definitions Beginning with the Letter "Y"

'yes-no question' One which has a simple positive or negative answer. CF. closed interrogative, polar interrogative.

yod The sound[j] written as y e.g. in English yet [jɛt]. Hence yodization (also 'yoticization' etc.) is a sound change or other process resulting in [j].

Yurok California language related to Algonquian within Algic.

Definitions from: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Second edition, 2007
Image credits: sharelike.me

Wordplay in the Nick of Time

Cartoon by Chris Yoder.

Random Linguistics Definitions Beginning with the Letter "U"

Umgangssprache German for 'colloquial language'.

'unfilled pause' An interval of silence in speech: i.e. a pause not 'filled' by a hesitation form.

uvular Articulated with the back of the tongue against or approximated to the fleshy appendage (or uvula) at the back of the soft palate. E.g. the 'r' in French is variously a uvular trill or, more usually, a uvular fricative.

Definitions from: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Second edition, 2007
Image credits: Wikipedia

Random Linguistics Definitions Beginning with the Letter "S"

schwa The mid-central vowel of e.g. the second syllable of matter: in phonetic notation [ ə ] ([matə ]) . Also spelled 'shwa'.

selective listening Selective attention to an individual speaker, e.g. in a crowded room where many people are talking.

shifter Jakobson's term for words like I, you and others whose interpretation involves person deixis.

speech error An accidental error in speech: cf. slip of the tongue.

Definitions from: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Second edition, 2007
Image credits: Wikipedia - Braille representation of letter 'S'

F*ckin' Word Play

Nuckin Futs

Language Log recently brought to my attention a newly trademarked (and Spoonerismized?) Australian snack food called Nuckin Futs.

What I found equally and complementary humorous was that a day or so later Cowbells at tumblr posted the following picture.

Happy New Year (Phonetically)

/hæpi: nu:w jɪər/

Hope you all enjoyed your holidays.