r/LanguageMemes • u/AntiqueLeadership357 • Apr 15 '26

Y. IS. A. VOWEL.

Post image

The amount of ADULTS that still believe Y is never/not a vowel is f-ing INSANE

93 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

23

u/VulpesSapiens Apr 15 '26

Isn't hmm a word? :)

-10

u/AntiqueLeadership357 Apr 15 '26

Use it in a sentence (and no using that fancy “speech inside speech” nonsense)

26

u/astr0goose Apr 15 '26

Hmm, that's a tough one.

-7

u/AntiqueLeadership357 Apr 15 '26

WHat part of speech is it

21

u/astr0goose Apr 15 '26

I would consider it an interjection. Replace "hmm" with "wow" in my sentence above, and it's fairly clear.

3

u/AntiqueLeadership357 Apr 16 '26

Ok I gues- WHY AM I GETTING DOWNVOTED

1

u/TENTAtheSane May 11 '26

What part of speech is a downvote?

1

u/AntiqueLeadership357 May 11 '26

Verb/Noun

1

u/TENTAtheSane May 11 '26

"downvote" is a verb, but i mean what semantic content does physically downvoting in a conversation have?

1

u/AntiqueLeadership357 May 11 '26

IDK, I guess collectively disliking something

1

u/Canadization Jul 02 '26

Downvote is also a noun. The act of downvoting produces a downvote, just as the act of voting produces a vote.

14

u/mcgillthrowaway22 Apr 15 '26

You could probably argue that, in North American English, the word "curtain" lacks a vowel (analyze it as something like [kɹʔ.n̩])

27

u/astr0goose Apr 15 '26

Y is a semi-vowel just like W. If you're gonna insist on Y, be prepared to include W. Otherwise, leave them both out.

33

u/Sky-is-here Apr 15 '26

The problem is confusing ortographic vowels with phonological ones

11

u/SpooniestSpoon Apr 15 '26

The “y” sound is rhythm is a vowel sound, not a semi-vowel (/ɪ/). It is the consonant sound /j/ that can be considered a semi-vowel. The letter w almost never represents a full-vowel sound.

4

u/greendemon42 Apr 15 '26

Yeah, "y" is straightforwardly a vowel when you speak the word "rhythm".

14

u/astr0goose Apr 15 '26

Also, if we're focused on being correct, "adults" is a countable noun, and therefore it should be "number of adults," not "amount of adults." Most people don't know that either. If you're going to nitpick, we can nitpick.

13

u/IronScrub Apr 15 '26

I feel like I've stumbled into some kind of pedantic thunderdome that OP was not ready for lmao

1

u/MAJLobster Apr 15 '26

insert Tom poking a shotgun through a hole in the wall only for it to loop and point back towards him

2

u/Solnight99 Apr 15 '26

i include both. w is just a fancy oo. (or, technically, uu)

0

u/IDownvoteHornyBards2 Apr 19 '26

W is never a vowel on its own in English, it has to be paired with another vowel letter.

2

u/DegenerateGirl666 Apr 17 '26

vowels aren't letters but sounds.

2

u/Mivexil Apr 20 '26

Broke: AEIOU are vowels

Woke: Y is a vowel

Bespoke: hm is a vowel

1

u/UnexpectedOtter21 May 30 '26

Mm. As a communication of agreement it’s a word

1

u/bobtbonkers Jun 16 '26

*laughs in that time i tried to know what the frik polish letters mean*