In 1968, during the administration of US President Lyndon B. Johnson, Eartha Kitt encountered a substantial professional setback after she made anti-war statements during a White House luncheon. Kitt was invited to the White House luncheon and was asked by Lady Bird Johnson about the Vietnam War. She replied: “You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot.”
During a question and answer session, Kitt stated:
The children of America are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. We don’t have what we have on Sunset Blvd. for no reason. They are rebelling against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country, particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons — and I know what it’s like, and you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson — we raise children and send them to war.
Her remarks reportedly caused Mrs. Johnson to burst into tears and led to a derailment in Kitt’s career
ALZEER, arabian stallion. Photography from HORSES OF QATAR by Vanessa Von Zitzewitz.
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Arika Okrent explains schwas on Lexicon Valley:
We all know that English spelling is rarely a good guide to pronunciation. One big reason for this is the prevalence of schwa in the spoken language. That’s why dictionaries and other written guides to pronunciation make use of a special symbol to represent the schwa sound. It looks like this: ǝ—an upside down e. But what is schwa anyway? Here are nine things to help you get to know this very important vowel.
1. ANY WRITTEN VOWEL CAN BE A SPOKEN SCHWA
A schwa is the ‘uh’ sound found in an unstressed syllable. For example, the first syllable in amazing (ǝ-MA-zing), the first syllable in tenacious (tǝ-NA-cious), the second syllable in replicate (RE-plǝ-cate), the second syllable in percolate (PER-cǝ-late), the first syllable in supply (sǝ –PLY), the first syllable in syringe (sǝ-RINGE). That’s a written A, E, I, O, U and even a Y coming out as schwa in the spoken version.
Schwas are very common in English (although they’re surprisingly difficult to play in IPA Scrabble, because they’re far more common in polysyllabic words). They’re less common in other languages, and are one of the things that contribute to non-native accents in both directions: English speakers tend to reduce vowels to schwa even when it’s unwarranted, and speakers of many other languages tend to pronounce too many full vowels.
Because of how common and distinctively-shaped schwa is, it (along with wugs) have become a ubiquitous icon for linguistics. For example, there’s a schwa necklace, dozens of schwa mugs and t-shirts, and of course the publication Schwa Fire.
Btw, if you’re saying these aloud and can’t convince yourself that they’re all the same sound or that some of them are clearly more like an “ih” sound like in sit or thin than an “uh”, you’re not crazy. There are actually two reduction vowels in English, schwa and what’s called barred i, or ɨ. They are often treated as the same and called schwa for simplicity, but in my dialect at least, barred i is actually way more frequent.
The classic example used to demonstrate the difference is to say the phrase “Rosa’s roses” out loud. The second vowel in “Rosa’s” is a schwa, whereas in “roses” it’s a barred i. Barred i often shows up in prefixes, suffixes, and in reduced vowels that occur between alveolar consonants, such as d, t, n, or s.
Yes, good point!
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i thought itd be cool to show my snake drinking, and then i found the option on youtube to add their pre-recorded “rock” music and i nearly pissed my pants
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please, Please, PLEASE… DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!
pony fandom may still Literally Be The Worst
but hyooman headcanons are still Literally The Most Important Thing to me
headcanons are listed under every character!