re: #222 The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge

And I don’t know what they mean by this:

A stressed “ə” is an “ʌ”—there’s no difference.

Teacher mode ON:

Sorry, there is a slight difference. The stress falls on the first syllable, and that vowel is represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet with /ʌ/. In the unstressed position, the vowel sound (which is almost not voiced at all) is the schwa /ə/, in the IPA.

Brit. /ˈbʌŋkə/ , U.S. /ˈbəŋkər/

Schwa /ə/ is the most common vowel sound in the English language. In American English, it often replaces whatever unstressed vowel is indicated in spelling. for example, /fə ‘tog grə fi/.

Teacher mode OFF.