U u

U is for Underpass

U of Ottawa underpass
This underpass is a pedestrian walkway.

History of the letter U

The Phoenician letter waw (Y), or “hook”, was one of the most variable, undergoing many mutations as it was adopted by various languages and cultures. This letter was the sixth in the alphabet and the origin in Greek of the letters digamma (F) and upsilon (Y), and in Latin of F and V. The letters U, W, and Y were also derived from it. Thus, waw became both a consonant and a vowel.

In Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac, the letter waw came to be written in different ways, as a single stroke or a little circle.

In Latin, a stemless waw (V) was used for the letters U and W. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the lower case letter v began to be rounded sometimes into a u. The capital U became accepted in the 1700s, especially in France.

There is still confusion over the pronunciation and usage of the waw-derived letters, especially in English words borrowed from other languages.

Some U words

cunning

sum

udder

ultimate

underneath

uniform

unusual

upper

urgent

user

Exercises

  1. Define each word in the lists, “Some U Words.” Identify each as a noun, adjective, verb, or adverb. Use each word in a sentence.

Special reading assignment

  1. An underpass is the space under a bridge of some sort, allowing traffic to go through. A long underpass may be called a “subway”, distinct from subway meaning “underground” or “tube” rail transport systems.
  2. Pedestrian underpasses are built where heavy foot traffic needs to avoid a major thoroughfare.

Note: This blog post is an excerpt from a book, “English Manual: Letter by Letter,” to be published one of these days.

U u

U is for Unicorn

Mythical beasts
Unicorns exist in the imagination, in toy stores, and sometimes in flea markets.

Consonant — vowel combinations

ub  U-boat                                     bu        bun

uc  buck                                        cu        curb

ud  udder                                       du        duck

uf   bluff                                        fu         fun

ug  ugly                                         gu        gun

uh  uh-huh                                     hu        hut

uj   U-joint                                     ju         junk

uk  ukulele                                     ku        skull

ul   ulcer                                        lu         lunch

um umbrella                                  mu       mutt

un  undo                                        nu        nut

up  upon                                        pu        puny

uq  bouquet                                   qu        quit

ur  urban                                       ru        run

us  user                                          su        sun

ut   utility                                       tu         tune

uv  uvea                                         vu        vulgar

uw thruway [US]                          wu       wurst

ux  uxorious                                  xu        xu (Vietnamese money)

uz  Uzi (gun)                                 zu        zucchini

 

Vowel — vowel combinations

ua  aqua                                         au        augur

ue  flue                                          eu        feud

ui   fluid                                        iu         radius

uo  buoy                                        ou        our

uu  vacuum                                    uu        muumuu

 

Exercises

  1. Examine the lists of “Vowel—Consonant Combinations” and “Vowel—Vowel Combinations,” and see how many more words you can add to the lists.

Special reading assignment

  1. A unicorn is a mythical beast with one horn or antler, rather than two. Unicorns are usually depicted as a white horse with flowing mane and tail.
  2. Do you use an umbrella in a downpour? Up until Thursday, I thought they were ugly.

 

Note: This blog post is an excerpt from a book, “English Manual: Letter by Letter,” to be published in 2017.

Q q

Q is for Quarry

Quarry; Open-pit mine
The marble quarry at Tatlock, Ontario, courtesy of Gary Sparkes.

History

The letter Q is derived from the Greek koppa and Semitic qoph. The original meaning of qoph is most likely a “cord of wool” and the original representation, a knot. Another suggestion is that Q represented the eye of a needle with a thread. A similar word in Arabic suggests that it might mean “nape” and represent the back of a head and nape of the neck. Yet another suggestion is that Q represents a monkey. I rather like that one.

Q is for quatrain and quintain

In poetry, a quatrain  is a four-line stanza and a quintain (or quintet) is a five-line stanza. These are usually part of a longer poem and may be variously rhymed.

There is something quieter than sleep

Within this inner room!

It wears a sprig upon its breast,

And will not tell its name.

— Emily Dickinson, from “Time and Eternity”

Exercises

  1. Write your own quatrain or quintain using at least one Q word. Which form is easier to write?

Special reading assignment

  1. The quintessential quiet in the quarter acre was accentuated by the murmur of quaking aspens.

 

U u

U is for Uglifruit

Tangelo or Uglifruit
An Uglifruit is a cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit.

Silent letter U

Rule

U is not pronounced when it comes after G and before a vowel. In these words, the U serves to make a hard g-sound.

catalogue

colleague

dialogue

guard

guess

guide, guidance

guilt

guitar

Exceptions

The letter U may take on the sound of W, especially after a G or a Q.

anguish

queen

quick

sanguine

segue

suave

In these words, the letter U does not create a hard g-sound. The G is a part of the nasal form —ing— or —ong—.

meringue

tongue

The same rule applies when the letter U follows a C. The U is silent, but serves to make a hard-c sound.

biscuit

circuit

U is also silent in words of mainly French derivation with the suffix —que.

antique

appliqué

bouquet

cheque [UK; check, US]

marquee

mosque

oblique

plaque

toque

unique

U is silent in few other words.

quay (pronounced kee)

Exercises

  1. Make a sentence using words with a silent U and then sound them out.

Special reading assignment

  1. Uglifruit is a trademark name for a Jamaican tangelo, a hybrid cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit (or pomelo).
  2. Is it our Ulster team that is the underdog? That’s unusual.
T t

T is for Tower

Sky scrapers
The top of the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada.

T is for that and those, this and these

That and this are used variously as pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs.

That (plural, those) is a commonly used to indicate a thing (or sometimes a person) or an action or a circumstance.

That particular dog over there was the one that ate the turkey.

Those skills are very necessary to succeed in that business.

We won’t do that again.

I would not go that far.

I would not go so far as to say that.

That morning, he was at work.

Used as an adverb to introduce a phrase, the word that is sometimes omitted.

That is one item that we defined as the priority.

That is one item we defined as a priority.

This (plural, these) is similarly used to indicate a thing (or sometimes a person) or an action or a circumstance.

This dog of yours, here under the table, ate some turkey, too.

These are the items that we defined as essential for this (our) business.

What did the team decide about this?

Don’t do this; you may break something.

This morning, I am very busy working.

Generally, this refers to familiar things close by and that to less familiar things further away.

I have this idea about that topic on the news.

The saying, this and that refers to unspecified things that you have been doing or getting.

I went to the store and got just a little of this and that.

Exercises

  1. How do you describe a class of things, such as cars, for example? Create your own taxonomy or classification.
  2. Create sentences using the words this and that in as many ways as you can think of.

Special reading assignment

  1. They told me that Timothy and Thomas treated themselves to ten trials at the terrible tumbled-down tenement.
  2. The CN Tower, which opened in 1976, is over 550 metres tall (over 1815 feet tall). The Edge Walk attraction is a narrow ledge 116 storeys above ground level.
T t

T is for Tiger

You may visit this tiger at the Toronto Zoo.
You may visit this tiger at the Toronto Zoo.

Some T prefixes

tachi—, tacho—, tachy— all imply “swift”.

tachometer

tachycardia

tauto— means “the same”.

tautology

techno— relates to the use of technology.

technobabble, technocracy

tele— comes from the Greek “far off” and often refers to television or telephone.

telecast, telegraph, teleprompter, telescope

ter— means “three” or “thrice”.

tercel, tercentennial

tera— means a factor of one trillion (1012) or, in computing, a multiple of 240.

terahertz, terawatt

terabit, terabyte

Some T suffixes

—t replaces the suffix —ed in some words.

gild, gilded [past tense/adjective], gilt [adjective]

spill, spilled [past tense], spilt [past participle]

spell, spelled [past tense], spelt [past participle]

spend, spent [past tense/past participle]

shall, shalt [second person singular, archaic]

 

—th, —eth are archaic or Biblical verb endings (third person singular, present tense).

He leadeth me beside still waters…

—th, —eth are endings that form ordinal numbers.

sixth, hundredth, millionth

nineth, twentieth

—th may refer to an act, process, state, or quality.

depth, growth, health, wealth, width

—the— may refer to God or gods.

atheist, pantheism

Exercises

  1. Look through the prefixes and suffixes. Do you see any that you might use on a day-to-day basis? Create a sentence with each of those.
  2. For the prefixes and suffixes that look less familiar, identify where you might find them, e.g., in a scientific text or a medical paper.

Special reading assignment

  1. Two tigers tore through three treacle tarts.
  2. Time and tide wait for no man. —Geoffrey Chaucer
T t

T is for Trillium

Trillium grandiflorum
In Ontario, Trilliums blanket the forest floor each spring.

Silent Ts and THs

The letter T at the end of a word of French derivation is usually silent.

ballet

gourmet

rapport

ricochet

Exceptions

bracelet

concert

The letter T may be silent when it follows an S or an F.

apostle

listen

moisten

whistle

Exceptions

The T may or may not be pronounced, depending on the dialect.

often [derived from oft, Old English], soften [derived from softe, Old English]

The letter T may be slurred or silent when it precedes the digraph CH, depending on dialect.

catch

match

watch

kitchen

The letter T may be slurred, or in some dialects silent, when it is in the middle of three consonants, most often at the end of a word. The preferred pronunciation includes a t-sound.

acts

ducts

students

Exception

mortgage (the t is always silent)

The letter T may be slurred or silent in rapid speech.

gentlemen

Toronto (the second t may disappear)

The digraph TH is slurred or silent in some dialects.

asthma

clothes

isthmus

nor’easter (northeasterly winds)

In some dialects, TH is silent at the end of a word where the digraph is in the middle of two consonants, but the preferred pronunciation includes a th-sound.

depths

lengths

months

Special reading assignment

The Thunder God went for a ride

Upon his favourite filly.

I’m Thor! he cried.

The horse replied,

You forgot your thaddle, thilly.

–Anonymous

The Trillium is the official flower of the province of Ontario, Canada. It grows from a small bulb which gains nourishment from the leaves. If you pick a Trillium, you kill the plant.

S s

S is for Sea Lion

Eumetopias jubatus
The book, “Animate Creation” is “Fully Illustrated with Scientific Accuracy.”

S is for Simple

Here is Dr. Holder’s version of “simple”. How would you put it?

In the present Volume, I have endeavored to carry out, on a more extended scale, the principle which has been partially indicated in several of my smaller works; namely, to present to the reader the outlines of zoologic knowledge in a form that shall be readily comprehended, while it is as intrinsically valuable as if it were couched in the most repellent vocabulary of conventional technicalities. In acting thus, an author must voluntarily abnegate the veneration which attaches itself to those who are the accredited possessors of abstruse learning, and must content himself with the satisfaction of having achieved the task which has been placed in his hands. In accordance with this principle, the technical language of scientific zoology has been carefully avoided, and English names have been employed wherever practicable in the place of Greek or Latin appellatives. 

–J.B.H.

From the Preface to “Mammalia,” volume I of Animate Creation; Popular Edition of “Our Living World,” a Natural History by the Rev. J. G. Wood, revised and adapted to American zoology by Joseph B. Holder, M.D., 1885.

 

Exercises

  1. Do you have trouble reading this passage? Try reading it out loud.
  2. How long is each sentence? Try to re-write the passage by breaking it into short sentences.
  3. Look up the words you don’t know. Are they now archaic or are they pedantic?
  4. Has the English language changed since 1885?
  5. Do you agree with what Dr. Holder is saying?