I promised myself that I wouldn’t mention Sisqo’s 1999 hit “Thong Song” in this article, but I’ve already done it. Avid Grammar Guy reader and fellow word nerd Dan sent me the following message: ...

The Long Terawan Berawan system of vowel phonemes consists of one monophthong in the antepenult, schwa, and four monophthongs in the penult, i, ə, a, and u. However, the final syllable exhibits ten ...

"Gherkin" — I like saying it. It's vaguely Indian sounding. "Kerfuffle." That's just fun, with so many F's packed into three syllables. "Diphthong" is sly because it's hiding a silent H, the H right ...