4 / Unstressed Syllables

Thank you for checking in! Thank you for being a friend!

Schwa Elision sits in that category of phrases that pleases one to discover, like thoughtful marginalia preserved throughout the pages of someone else's loved book, now in your hands. It's yours to keep and return to. More examples of peculiar words in that category from recent readings: segment deletion, adversarial poetry, war partitioning*, anything described as crepuscular, or marginalia.

These are the phrases that writers and other bothersome people file away to later sneak into their works, marring clean paragraphs with blue, under-lined text to define their unnecessary references. Or worse, they we will insert them into conversations and respond when asked, "Oh, segment deletion? In linguistics, it's when you omit a sound from a word in your natural speech. Like the second, silent B in bomb."

Flexing knowledge of obscure terms is a clumsy practice that embarrasses everyone involved, akin to Jay-Z's name drops of status-signaling brands in "Excuse Me Miss". In the song's intro, he chides lesser folk who mispronounce alcoholic drinks: "You can't even drink Crist-OWL on this one / You gotta drink Crist-ALL," which, okay, thank you for the correction. But then he condescends, "You mighta gotta go get you some Scooby Doo's. Gotta throw on ya Scooby Doo's... those are shoes by the way." Bro what are you even talking about??

Schwa Elision is a type of deletion that describes how one omits the vowel ə (schwa) sound for many words, such as chocolate or memory or different. Perhaps this is all common knowledge for readers who paid attention in English class, but educating myself on elision brought me to this special Bachelor's thesis by Bob Rossen on AAVE, mumble rap, and how "segmental deletion is more likely to occur in rap music because of the speech rate of rapping." The paper contains this wild table about Lil Uzi's "XO TOUR Llif3":

Amid reports of foreign wars and casualties, news services across the Atlantic will introduce you to regionalized schwa elisions like military and cemetery. I prefer their efficient pronunciations over how the U.S. omits the omission, how we stress the vowels. This is unfortunate for me. Because saying cemetery out loud so it sounds cousin to symmetry, when one has never touched Irish or British soil outside of London Heathrow, is sicko behavior. Beyond the pale. You are stepping out in clown shoes to brag with unearned arrogance, "Oh y'all don't know about Scooby Doo's?"

It is unfortunate for me because it's possible that language is a virus, as suggested by Burroughs** and later Laurie Anderson, and my speech betrays the symptoms of infection from exotic elisions. I am out here unconsciously saying cemetery with that last e inverted, my footwear bright red and floppy in the circus fashion.

In a similar way, I pronounce, to myself, clipboard as clibbard, to be consistent with how we elide the P in cupboard to say cubbard. This is foolish because these syllables require enunciation to describe the functions of the named objects. But segment deletion can be a parasite blighting the principal parts of your central nervous system that protect you from these self-destructive habits.***

I typed this all to share two things: 1.) the, again, incredible table a few paragraphs up, and 2.) a six-year-old forum post that is always on my mind and has nothing to do with elision or language. The post is a cautionary tale on how a preference or fancy can damage you in ways undetectable until decades later. When I say clibbard to myself, the word is styled blue and under-lined, linked to this lore:

This is comparable to how our mothers warned us, "If you keep making that face, it will get stuck that way" (expanded upon by R.L. Stine in The Haunted Mask, an all-time, hang-it-in-the-rafters Goosebumps story, cover, and episode.). If you keep walking like a velociraptor, if you keep pronouncing clipboard or cemetery like that, if you keep flexing to convince others you "live at a more rarified level than the proletariat", if you keep shoe-horning eclectic phrases into your newsletters, etc.. There can be hidden costs to these quirks we take comfort in, the subtle sounds we skip, and those costs tend to add up.

*War Partitioning is a system and term invented by Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury to describe proxy forever wars on Earth exploited by space-based arms sellers. Since it's from an anime, maybe it doesn't qualify as reading, unless you count the English subtitles and this Super Robot Wars wiki entry.

**This idea that "language is a virus from outer space" comes from the 1962 novel The Ticket That Exploded by William S. Burroughs, later inspiring and shortened into the song title by Ms. Anderson.

***Bro what are you even talking about??

A few dope things that have been on my mind:

1. Rest in peace to Glenn Clifton Jr., aka Young Bleed (June 6, 1974 – November 1, 2025) - When we lauded Young Bleed and his hit song "How Ya Do Dat" last month, fresh off his performance at the No Limit vs Cash Money VERZUZ, the Baton Rouge rapper seemed triumphant, celebrated once again and receiving his well-deserved flowers. To know now that he collapsed in the following hours, suffering from a brain aneurysm at the event's after-party, then passing a week later, broke my heart.

Young Bleed's debut My Balls and My Word is a classic, standing out in a busy crowd of No Limit albums at the height of the record label's renown and prolific release schedule in the late '90s. His laid-back, monotone flow stayed with me over the years -- as if nothing could faze him, though violence was expected and came easy ("fresh off the curb / jelly jam and preserve / nothin' but balls and my word / and a Mossberg pistol grip pump on my lap at all times").

2. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad - This is essential reading, and I hope the headlines for it winning the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction will bring more to the book. "This is the world we've created, a world in which one privileged sliver consumes, insatiable, and the best everyone else can hope for is to not be consumed. It is not without reason that the most powerful nations on earth won't intervene to stop a genocide but will happily bomb one of the poorest shipping countries on the planet to keep a shipping lane open."

3. Past Lives (2023, dir. Celine Song) - Three years in, this has become an annual watch for me, usually available on Delta's selection of in-flight movies, just short enough for that quick jump from Ohio to visit family in Florida. Even if viewed in less than ideal conditions, on a tiny screen, audio muted as you listen to a podcast, paused at awkward moments for flight announcements, its heartache still comes through.

4. Dymo 1570 embossing label maker - I sought out this vintage labeler to help identify drawers in my workshop's various small parts cabinets. Of the classic chrome metal models, which lack the flimsiness and DRM in some of their modern, plastic counterparts, the Dymo 1570 remains in demand due to its support of the still common 3/8" tapes, as well as wider rolls. I also had no trouble taking one apart to service with help from Exercising Ingenuity's video.

♫ It's almost the end of the show ♫

Elision this, elision that. How about he listen to that inner voice saying "nobody's trying to read all that."

I still struggle to balance writing what I'd want to read with what I want to type out, this email subjecting us to the latter. Ani DiFranco sang, "Half of learning what to play is learning what not to play," and we're learning what we want from this newsletter together. I would appreciate if you tap reply and let me know whether any of these references hit for you. Or just let me know what dope things have been on your mind :D

4 / Unstressed Syllables

Credits: The header image was taken from my in-flight viewing of Past Lives. Shout-outs to Delta for keeping it in their rotation of films.

The Bachelor's thesis from Bob Rossen is titled "The role of emotion in AAVE pronunciation: Mumble Rap as a phenomenon of Language Evolution." He explains, "This study will focus on the effect of emotion on pronunciation in the specific case of Mumble Rap, a relatively new phenomenon in rap music introduced by speakers of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). ... This provides insight into the development of AAVE as a variety of standard American English."

And the quote about social strivers seeking to demonstrate they live at a more rarified level than the proletariat is from Colin O'Connor's note to his daughter about buying a Peloton Bike.

A couple folks I cared for, though our time together was brief, have passed away this week or will pass very soon. It seems odd to honor Young Bleed and then not share their names (or even my late friend who owned the CD of My Balls and My Word that we bumped so many times in his Acura NSX on our drive to school), but it didn't feel right, you know? They've been on my mind a lot while I wrote this, no doubt.