It’s “punishment” because the vowel-dump openers (ADIEU, AUDIO, OUIJA, etc.) are a cheat-code that only works if the answer actually has A/E/I/O/U.
Almost every Wordle does. A handful don’t — they only use Y (MYRRH, NYMPH, GLYPH, TRYST…). Those first two guesses come back all gray, you’ve spent half your lives learning almost nothing, and you’re now staring at a keyboard of unused consonants.
People who hate that optimized style treat the rare no-vowel day as the puzzle slapping the spreadsheet players. That’s the joke.
Woo, you watched that stupid, insufferable, cringe, lol i'm so randomvideo too. You can make any number of vowel-less "words" without meanings like this. Hmm, hnnng, brr, shh, mmm, bzz(t), grr, zzz, etc. etc.
The word “vowel” has two meanings found in the Cambridge dictionary, one of them refers to the type of sound (which is defined by phonetics), the other refers to a type of letter that usually makes that sounds (which is defined by grammar).
Y usually only makes a consonant sound at the beginning of a syllable (it's a vowel in that very word!). But most examples of 'y' are mid- or end of a syllable.
Ironically, this is not much of a problem centered in the USA. US schooling always mentions Y sometimes being a vowel.
I'm not too sure about other regions like AUS, UK, Canada, and foreign English teachings... But this persons failure on education is apparently a failure on them acknowledging information.
Broadly speaking, basically anything can be a vowel, I'm pretty sure there are several languages where 'g' and 'n' could technically be vowels or semi-vowels— being a technical vowel is basically boils down to how commonly we use it as a vowel— Y is extremely common as a vowel in English.
I feel like we were always taught “sometimes y” as when it’s a vowel, but weren’t taught when.
If Y starts a word, it is a consonant. If it is anywhere else in the word, it is a vowel. (There are probably exceptions to this rule, but it would have been so easy to teach this as a generality)
Linguistically, the "sometimes" part of the grade-school lesson doesn't make sense, since the letter y is more commonly pronounced as a vowel. But its consonant sound is unique, and that seems to be why y is more often considered to be a consonant and only "sometimes" a vowel. In other words, we need y more as a consonant in the English language than a vowel.
Wordle, and the English language as a whole, uses the English alphabet. You are including vowels from the Phonetic Alphabet, all of which are represented in English by letters from the English alphabet.
Y does not count as a vowel in English when it’s in the beginning of a word or syllable (there’s probably exceptions). But Y is a consonant in words like “yeah”, “yes”, “yellow”, or “beyond”. When it makes a “yuh” sound
Herb's American pronunciation actually does start with a consonant, the glottal stop. All English words that begin with vowel sounds have that hidden consonant that we don't even recognize until it's pointed out to us because it's so innate. Say the word "apple" and feel how there's a puff of air on the A sound. That's the glottal stop.
Here’s the definition that aligns with what you’re saying:
> a speech sound produced by humans when the breath flows out through the mouth without being blocked by the teeth, tongue, or lips
But there’s another definition that you’re not accounting for:
> a letter that represents a sound produced in this way
Yes, a letter can be used to represent this, that does not make the letter the sound. The difference between "c" representing the speed of light, but not BEING the speed of light.
It's both. The standard definition of a vowel (and consonant) does refer to a sound. But common language colloquially uses the term "vowel" and "consonant" to refer to the letters forming said sounds, largely out of necessity. People generally don't talk (or really know) much about phonemes, but they do talk about letters a lot, and the topic of vowels and consonants is largely perceived through the letters that form them. So the definition has been adapted to letters, and behold, we have vowel letters (or just vowels).
You've fallen into the common linguistic pitfall: Definitions are guidelines. Common usage is what truly defines the language, including the meaning of words.
I agree. That is why I wrote “vowel letter“ as in that it generally stands for a vowel. I was originally going to write more about how the consonant it makes sometimes is derived from a vocalic root.
Glides are not letters they are sounds. If you’re going to cite a Linguistics paper, I need you to actually understand some of the formal terminology of Linguistics.
Absolutely incredible to suggest someone learn the rules of linguistics and then come and use Wheel of Fortune as your defense of failing basic linguistics.
The literary crisis is strong with you eh? Y is more used as a vowel, but the consonant sound a y produces is an original sounds so it also needs to be available as a consonant.
You are allowed to learn nuance to language rules after, say, third grade. Only if you want to though.
Yeah, if you do NYMPH next, you get to know if there’s an H, M or a P in it, that should eliminate basically the rest of the list if they’re absent, and TRYST is right there.
What's more, because the R is green you know where it goes. If it's not in second position then you've potentially got the answer in 3. (There's quite a few words with no vowels but with the R in second place)
3blue1brown uses exactly that principle in their video “Solving wordle using information theory”, where he argues that the best thing to guess is not the most-likely word, but the word which is expected to reduce the uncertainty of the solution the most.
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u/lightning_Mcking29 4d ago
It’s “punishment” because the vowel-dump openers (ADIEU, AUDIO, OUIJA, etc.) are a cheat-code that only works if the answer actually has A/E/I/O/U.
Almost every Wordle does. A handful don’t — they only use Y (MYRRH, NYMPH, GLYPH, TRYST…). Those first two guesses come back all gray, you’ve spent half your lives learning almost nothing, and you’re now staring at a keyboard of unused consonants.
People who hate that optimized style treat the rare no-vowel day as the puzzle slapping the spreadsheet players. That’s the joke.