Loony Of The Week

person Donald Trumps chooses to represent him on television

Moron taunts grannies protesting peacefully, then uses the N-word... to the photojournalist. using a large camera to record the incident.Worker threw exception | www.rawstory.com | CloudflareEdited by JonF, : No reason given.

More on Pierson here.Also I myself in the course of my research have discovered something much more damaging to her credibility. Apparently she's a Trump supporter.

Really, purulent should be purulent. Pus has a classical root, after all: we don't go about saying tripody for tripedal or automatony for automatic or absorby for absorbent.

NosyNed writes:

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I am not sure what is right but it seems to me that, maybe, since "pus" has one "s" maybe purulent should be pusy with one "s".

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There are a couple things going on here.The rules of English regarding the relationship between pronunciation and spelling (and for simplicity's sake, I'm restricting myself to single syllable words) is such that if it ends with a vowel and a single consonant, the vowel is short:cop (a police officer)
rap (a short strike upon a surface)In order to get a long vowel sound, you add a silent-e to the end:cope (to handle a situation)
rape (to engage in sexual activity against someone's will)When you attach a suffix to these words, the rule is that if it ends with a consonant and the vowel is short, you double the final letter:cop + -ing => copping (to admit to)
rap + -ing => rapping (to repeated strike a surface)This is because when you add an ending to a word that ends with silent-e to the end, you drop the silent-e, leave the final consonant alone, and then add the ending:cope + -ing => coping (to be handling a situation)
rape + -ing raping (to be engaging in sexual activity with someone against their will)There's an employment agency, "Jobing.com," that always annoys me when I see it: It should be spelled, "Jobbing.com." I don't know what "jobe-ing" is."If the word has more than one consonant at the end, you don't touch them but simply tack on the suffix:fall + -ing => falling
bless + -ing => blessingSo with "pus," to add a suffix to it, you would typically double the s and add the suffix:pus + -y => pussyThis has the same short "u" sound as the original "pus."The problem, of course, is that we have another word that uses the short "oo" sound that is written with a "u": puss. We can't spell it "pus" because with the consonant-vowel-consonant construction, that is pronounced with a short "u." In order to indicate that it is pronounced with a different vowel sound, the spelling is different: "puss" with a doubled s.So if we want to add -y to the end, you leave the consonants alone because there is more than one:puss + -y => pussyThis has the same short "oo" sound as the original "puss."And thus, we end up with two words that are spelled the same due to following standard rules of English but are pronounced differently. Context will let you know if you are referring to putrescence or something related to weakness or cats.[Note: Yes, I know. It's English and thus there are any number of exceptions to the rules.]

I'd still much rather sit next to any homosexual than him. In fact, I'd rather not sit where he sat until someone has done a through clean and wipe.

I'm actually fascinated to discover that American English distinguishes these two sounds - I never knew that. In British English they wouldn't be considered separate sounds. Not that we don't hear the difference, but which 'u' sound you use depends on where you grew up rather than which word you're trying to say.

Domestic Terrorists Seize Federal Facility In Oregonand another link What's Happening in Oregon Is Nothing Less Than Armed SeditionEdited by Tanypteryx, : added a link

And yet "British English" itself doesn't have universal pronunciation standards. "Mom" , pronounced "mawm" in the US, is often pronounced "mum" in Britain (and spelled that way too) but it can also be pronounced "Moom" (rhymes with "book"). "Book" can be pronounced "booook" (rhymes with the Canadian "tuque", which in the US is pronounced "hat". )

I'm fairly sure that whereas Northerners may conflate ʌ and ʊ into ʊ, no-one conflates them into ʌ.

But that's just what I said - in the north of England it's pronounced 'mum' (which you spell 'moom' because of the silly way you think 'u' should be pronounced); whereas in the south it's pronounced the way you think 'mum' should sound.

I was about to argue, but then I thought about how a southerner would say 'book' and realised that I didn't think this one through!

Mum is mum is mum. (Except when is doesn't mater ;-)I'd sort of accept maybe a shortening of the 'u' and exageration of the 'm' for a northerner - mumm - just, but I doubt a Canadian would notice.But book and look and cook - as in 'the cuwk tuwk a luwk in the cuwkery buwk' - is quite distinctive.A Northerner has a bath while a southerner has a barth. A northerner sits on the grass while a southerner sits on the grars. Strangely, both sit on their respective arses.

I'm surprised to hear that.In Australia (where I grew up), they are clearly separate sounds. And usually Australian pronunciation is closer to British (or London) than to US pronunciation.

Now that is going to be confusing to Americans. They expect "r" (as in "ar") to be pronounced, whereas you are probably just intending to lengthen the "a" sound.Aren't we getting a bit off topic here?