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Today's Post:    The Wannabe Vowel

“AEIOU” – five vowels, no more, no less. Why can’t “y” make peace with that. You’ve just seen wh”y”. Pretending to be a vowel with a lon”i” sound. He does it all the time: Thyme, rhyme, shy, thy. He loves to hide behind an “h” and often forces the “h” to be silent, as in rhyme. Oddly enough, if he is followed by a consonant, he seems to need a trailing “e” to give him the strength to be long: Without it, he weakens into a soft little short “i”. Rhyme becomes rhythm. And when psyche turns into physique, the usurped “i” shrieks in anguish while the “e” shrinks into silence. It's not all long and short. There’s a middle sound like sink in synch. Furthermore, he doesn’t just pretend to be an “i”. The “e” is fair game as well, especially one dangling at the end of a word, such as ferry and merry. He turns a stare into starry and a store into story. He attacks the “o” as well, turning bow into boy and tow into toy. There’s no end to his villainy. Only the “a” and “u” appear immune to it. Or are they? Can you uncover inroads there as well? It all seems to stem from an inferiority complex caused when he was given the ungainly “yuh” sound, which he shamefully provides in his proper place, like in yawl, yacht, you, young, youthfully (there he goes again, never satisfied with only his proper role).

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