668
xkcd #2942: Fluid Speech (imgs.xkcd.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/xkcd@lemmy.world
97 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

xkcd #2942: Fluid Speech

https://xkcd.com/2942

explainxkcd.com for #2942

Alt text:

Thank you to linguist Gretchen McCulloch for teaching me about phonetic assimilation, and for teaching me that if you stand around in public reading texts from a linguist and murmuring example phrases to yourself, people will eventually ask if you're okay.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

OMG, that makes it so much worse. If someone tells you about a specific place, and you want to look it up later, you have absolutely zero chance of ever spelling it correctly. Good luck typing lester or woster in Wikipedia or Maps.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    As it happens, that worked just fine:

    Worcester is famous even outside the UK because of Worcestershire sauce (pronounced "woster-shuh" sauce), the condiment named after the region. And because the name is on the bottle, it's easy for people to remember.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent