661
submitted 6 months ago by Deebster@programming.dev to c/xkcd@lemmy.world

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] megane_kun@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago

The alien impersonator was me all along!‌ HAHAHA!!!

I mean, seriously, I am not a native English speaker, but even with my weird English accent, it only became weirder if I try to speak fast while keeping the emphasis on that 't' at the end of "hot". My native accent also probably lends to that glottal stop taking over the 't' and merging it with the upcoming 'p' sound. It also helps that the two sounds (glottal stop and the bilabial 'p') are on opposite sides of my mouth, so I‌ can quickly sound them in succession. The end result sounded to me like an exaggerated "posh British" rendition, as if the alien watched way too much‌ BBC before invading Earth.

It just sounded way weirder than I otherwise would be. I can't really describe it.

this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
661 points (99.0% liked)

xkcd

8919 readers
22 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS