{"id":12434,"date":"2013-09-17T19:59:45","date_gmt":"2013-09-17T18:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=12434"},"modified":"2013-09-17T20:02:35","modified_gmt":"2013-09-17T19:02:35","slug":"word-of-the-day-schwa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=12434","title":{"rendered":"Word of the day: schwa"},"content":{"rendered":"

My relatives and friends joke that so often I find myself talking to strangers. But I’m a friendly guy and frequently I find that such conversations teach me something. So it proved today.<\/p>\n

I was in central London to attend a meeting and had some lunch at a branch of “Pret a manger”. It was busy and there were no free tables, so I joined a table where a young woman was already sitting and we fell into conversation.<\/p>\n

She was from Moldova but spoke excellent English. I asked her if she had found it difficult to learn English and she said that it had been easy “except for the schwa”.<\/p>\n

I had no idea what she was talking about and thought that maybe I had misheard her. In response to my confusion, she repeated the word: “schwa”.<\/p>\n

I had to confess that I was none the wiser. This was strange: a foreigner using an English word that I did not comprehend.<\/p>\n

To resolve my bewilderment, she used her connected iPad to Google the word and show me the definition. It was not an easy concept for me to grasp immediately because it refers to a manner of speaking which for me is second nature and has never occasioned thought.<\/p>\n

As I understand it, the schwa is a phonetic term which refers to the use of unaccented vowels, letters or syllables. Apparently it is the most common sound in English. You can find a short and simple explanation here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thank you, Monika, for educating me about my own language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"