this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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xkcd

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

See, my middle name ends with an S and my last name begins with an S... and my middle name is a pluralized name, so nobody hears the S when I say it in conjunction with my last name. So I've gotten really good at pronouncing the S, stopping for a beat, then saying my last name, without it sounding super weird or robotic.

So properly pronouncing "hot potato" while enunciating the first T doesn't seem too challenging to me.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is some riddle shit I can't figure out

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Something like "Adams Smith" probably fits the bill. People would hear "Adam Smith"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Thanks so much! I always sucked at riddles I couldn't come up with anything lol