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.

  • I was scolded by a boss for using words that to me were perfectly ordinary everyday words. Words like “cognate” or “cognizant”, say, but to him they sounded like I was showing off and making people feel bad.

    Oops.