3 ms·
Single-syllable words can still be pretty long, like "squished" or "scrambled"
by ronjakoi 1y ago
Single-syllable words can still be pretty long, like "squished" or "scrambled"
- schoen 1y agoI just ran some code over the CMU pronouncing dictionary and the longest words identified as single-syllable that are English-origin and not proper names or possessives were 9 SCRATCHED 9 SCREECHED 9 SCROUNGED 9 SCRUNCHED 9 SQUELCHED 9 STRAIGHTS 9 STRENGTHS 9 STRETCHED For eight letters, it found dozens of examples! The CMU dictionary thinks that "scrambled" is two syllables as a vowel ends up between the "b" and the "l" in pronunciation. Wiktionary thinks this is a syllabic l (/l̩/), which should probably be counted as a separate syllable even if it isn't considered a vowel. Wikipedia says > Many dialects of English may use syllabic consonants in words such as even [ˈiːvn̩], awful [ˈɔːfɫ̩] and rhythm [ˈɹɪðm̩], which English dictionaries' respelling systems usually treat as realizations of underlying sequences of schwa and a consonant (for example, /ˈiːvən/). That's consistent with what the CMU dictionary is doing, perhaps treating /l̩/ as /əl/.