Word Facts

When speakers of two or more languages, or speakers of two dialects, come into contact with each other enough, certain traits will eventually merge somewhat. Historically, Spanish has had a great deal of influence on English, but more modernly, Mexican Spanish spoken in and near the United States has led to vowel-changes in certain dialects of American English. In Chicano English spoken by Mexican Americans in places like the American Southwest and Chicago, as well as Californian, several shifts have occurred. The "cot–caught merger", which makes /a/ and /ɔ/ appear indistinguishable (present in the two words respectively) is complete, as well as the "salary–celery merger" which merges /æ/ and /ɛ/ before /l/, and also the /ɪ/ in 'sing' (/sɪŋ/) becomes /i/ like in 'see', which also happens in Californian English. Also, make long vowels become monophthongal, but this is a feature of Great Lakes accent as well, and has much less to do with Spanish. Thes...

The pronoun 'they' has a few different uses. In addition to the standard usage as a third-person plural pronoun, there is also the somewhat 'singular they' which stands in for the arguably more cumbersome "he or she" and any other declensions thereof in constructions like "if someone is hungry, he or she should eat" or "...they should eat". This is especially disliked by prescriptivists, but it is perfectly understandable, and has been present in English for a long time. Also, some people elect to be called 'they' individually, so this usage is also more inclusive. The pronoun, however, has taken on an even more hypothetical role than just being a substitute for "he or she", and people use it in hypothetical statements, or ones relating to the future, such as in this quote taken from the Twitter account of Solomon Georgio, "you think getting friend zoned is bad, imagine your creepy male friend thinking you owe them so...

Because language has to rely on multiple people understanding the same references, one of the best way to create new words and phrases is to draw from things many people know. This happens with kennings that draw from mythology, and sometimes jargon, which initially only has meaning for those with a specific occupation, makes its way into common lexicon. The phrase "knuckle down" meaning to apply oneself to a task draws from the game of marbles. In that game, which was once very popular, putting ones knuckles on the taw could help make a better shot.

English has several pronouns—'who', 'what', 'where', 'when', 'why' 'which' etc.—that all introduce the same sorts of clauses, and all begin with the same two letters when spelt. They go by some different names including "'wh-' questions", and introduce both questions, and relative clauses. Some people also classify 'how' as a 'wh-' question, because it has the same functions as all of the rest. And while 'how' does not start with the initial 'wh-' and is not pronounced with a /w/ like 'what' or 'which', 'who' is pronounced with an /h/ like 'how, even though it retains the spelling.

Affixes are a valuable and often necessary way to indicate syntax in a word, but depending upon context and convention, they aren't always obligatory. Suffixes such as '- ly ' or '-y' that can indicate that a noun or an adjective become an adjective or an adverb respectively are often dropped off from certain words, especially in certain dialects. For instance, the word 'real' is an adjective more often than it is an adverb, but in the sentence "that's real funny" it acts as a submodifier. There is no reason that any word must necessarily be one part of speech for another, so while it may not be as formal for certain occasions or certain written pieces, it is understandable to native speakers.

People use plenty of abbreviations, initialisms, and acronyms, but almost always these will take the beginning letter or letters of a word, without changing them. 'Christmas' however is often, informally written as 'x-mas' which neither sounds much like nor is spelt as the beginning of the original word. Instead, the X represents the Greek letter chi, which in lower case looks like χ. This letter actually does act as the initial, but it comes from the Greek word 'χρῑστός' ('Khristos') meaning ‘Christ’. There are indeed a lot English words for Christian terms, often coming from the Septuagint .

There is somewhat of a stereotype that opera singers are larger than average. Though generalizations like these are often unfounded, David Drexler et al. from the University of Iowa found that a certain amount of fat on the vocal cords can help a singer sound better. A mucosa on the vocal chords softens the impact when they come together, but extra amounts can improve the quality of sound. It was also found that the mucosa can add more vibrational energy to air as it is exhaled, which also allows opera singers to perform better. There are many other factors that come into this as well, and it is not at all the case that all opera singers are overweight at all, but having extra fat in general could mean there is some extra fat on the mucosa. Also, sometimes when one has scarring on the throat, surgeons can inject more fat onto the larynx for this same reason.

Though other species do have the ability to communicate in a number of different ways, none have as sophisticated a method as human speech. This is for a number of biological reasons, including the fact that humans have such large brains, but quite importantly as well, we have a nerve in the brain that allows for much more control over the tongue as compared to other animals, and also, about 60,000 years ago, the hyoid developed which can better support the larynx, used for creating sounds. This all together allows the wide range of sounds that can be recreated that humans use, but unfortunately due to the configuration of the glottis and other parts of the throat, humans are much more likely—up to ten times more likely than other primates—to choke. Whether or not you think that is a fair trade-off, you'll still be able to voice your opinions due to a series of biological adaptations within the last few hundred-thousand years.