Letters that are arguably vowels in English (or at least part of vowel
combinations):
a (Of course)
e (Again, of course)
g ) In "though" (part of a vowel comination "ough", distinguishing
h ) this word from "thou". Also in "sigh".
i (Third of course)
l In "calm" (distinguishing this word from "cam").
o (Penultimate of course)
r In words ending in "er", "or" and "our", for nonrhotic speakers.
u (Last of course)
w In "awe" and "ewe" -- native English words, so that you don't have
to depend on the Welsh import "cwm"
y In "by", "hymn", "my", "very", etc.
Any more candidates?
Giles
#### ## Giles Martin
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The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together
-- All's Well That Ends Well, IV.iii.98-99
On Wed, 11 Jun 1997, Edward Cherlin wrote:
> 'w' is originally an abbreviation of 'uu'. Saying that it isn't a vowel is
> one of the many absurdities of grammarians. (Actually no letter *is* a
> vowel. There are more than 20 vowels in English, and only seven letters to
> write them with, but there are several hundred spellings of the various
> vowels. [sigh])
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