Trios 3

I used The Free Dictionary at thefreedictionary.com .

Ex. Fill in the gaps with one word. The same word in the same form is needed in each of the three sentences.

1. You've made some progress but there's still ___ for improvement.
My London flat was so small there was no ___ to swing a cat.
The computers are assembled in a clean ___.

2. Don't give me this ___ look. It's not my fault Jane didn't arrive.
I gave up my job at a corporation: it was stressful, the competition was ___ and the salary wasn't high anyway.
The neighbour's ___ dog once killed a wild pigeon. [not: angry, bad]

3. Octopodes do not have an ___ shell.
The castle had an inner wall and an ___ wall.
Johnnie watched an old science fiction movie about evil robots from ___ space.

4. I don't have time for this, I have bigger ___ to fry.
Oliver drinks like a ___. Last night he was so drunk we had to call a taxi to take him home.
On my first day in the new department I felt like a ___ out of water.

5. Their Tinder date was a disaster: he kept telling rude jokes and she decided to ___ on him earlier and go home.
If you ___ someone out from gaol (jail), you pay to get them released earlier.
You have to ___ out the boat or it will sink.

6. If I buy ten lottery tickets, perhaps I'll strike it ___ this time.
Don't worry about failing the second driving test. Third time ___.
Grandma thanks her ___ stars that all her grandchildren went to university and found good jobs.

7. I hate conflicts and I never enter the ___.
My cheap jacket began to ___ around the edges after a month.
Tempers will ___ if aunt and uncle start discussing abortion laws again.

8. The passenger was caught with a ___ of drugs under his clothes.

Don't try to repair your laptop on your own or you'll ___ it and maybe start a fire too.

If he thinks he'll make tons of money by importing cheap Chinese games consoles, he's one ___ short of a load. 


KEY
1. room, 2. fierce, 3. outer, 4. fish, 5. bail, 6. lucky, 7.fray, 8. brick

Trios 2

 Ex. Fill in the gaps with one word. The same word in the same form is needed in each of the three sentences.

1. It was with a ___ heart that I brought my friend the bad news.

Jane's Norwegian boyfriend is a great fan of ___ metal.

For this dessert you will need 300 ml of ___ or double cream. There's no low-fat option in this recipe.

2. People who vote for different parties in different elections are ___ voters.

Autumn leaves were ___ on the surface of the lake.

Dozens of hot air balloons were ___ in the blue summer sky.

3. Tiny Tim was known for the high ___ of his singing voice.

Right before the start of the football match a man in a dog costume ran onto the ___ and was caught by two security guards.

The night in the jungle was ___ black, with no city lights to be seen for dozens of miles.

4. "Revenge is a dish best ___ cold."

Are you being ___, Madam? Shall I bring you a menu?

Our uncle ___ in the navy for 15 years.

5. Jason was ___ between staying in his hometown and moving to San Francisco.

The old hotel building was damaged in a fire and had to be ___ down.

If I'd known Mr Grumpy was coming, I'd have ___ off immediately.

6. I had a quick ___, ate my breakfast in a hurry and left for work.

Fran's grandparents always ___ her with gifts on her birthday.

Pauline's baby ___ was a success even though she got three identical teddy bears.

7. There are 100 employees on the ___ at the factory.

When Trudy quit the job, someone in the department had to take care of the ___ of account.

Children these days don't realise that in the past you had to keep phone ___ or directories at home in order to call anyone.

KEY

1. heavy, 2. floating, 3. pitch, 4. served, 5. torn, 6. shower, 7. books

Trios 1

In this series of exercises, inspired by a use of English task in Cambridge CPE examinations in the 2000's, you will need the same word to fill in the gaps in three sentences. The trick is that the word in question is usually used in different ways: it has multiple meanings, it is used in metaphorical expressions, phrasal verbs and idioms, it is converted from a noun to a verb or adjective etc. The word should be used in the same form in all three sentences: if the verb do is the answer, the sentences should not require does, doing, done, did etc.

Ex. Fill in the gaps with one word. The same word in the same form is needed in each of the three sentences.

1. When the man promised I'd earn millions by selling cryptocurrencies, it was a ___ light to me. 
It's Chris's stag night. Let's go out and paint the town ___. 
The thief left a false clue; it was a ___ herring.

2. You didn't study for your test and you got 10% of the score. Now you have to ___ the music.

Both the ___ and the hands of the clock were painted black; it was useless, you couldn't see a thing.

Gemma trusts people and takes their opinions at ___ value.

3. The company's meetings were so long and boring nobody wanted to ___ them.

Get off your high ___, Al: being a manager doesn't mean you never make mistakes.

Our teenage son spent all his money on a special gaming ___ instead of saving.

4. I took swimming lessons as a child but I still won't swim to the ___ end of the pool.

We're between the devil and the ___ blue sea: we can sell the house cheaply or spend far too much on getting it repaired.

The celebrity expressed her ___ apology following the scandal she had caused last week.

5. The smoke alarm went ___ for no reason, but we still had to leave the building.

The milk was left on the counter for three days and it went ___.

Don't just sit there, get ___ the couch and help me.

6. I'll have a double hamburger and large ___ fries.

Don't listen to him, he's a #*%@, pardon my ___.

They have a ___ window in the living room and can access the garden from there or the front lawn.

7. I'm feeling off ___ today. I had a bad headache all night.

100% on your exam? Oh, ___ me impressed!

Attending English lessons at school may be easy, but studying for a degree in English Language and Literature is a horse of another ___.

8. Don't ___ the dog without asking the owner first. It could bite you.

Developing organic plastic made from seaweed was a ___ of genius.

The vampire appeared at the ___ of midnight.

KEY

1. red, 2. face, 3. chair, 4. deep, 5. off, 6. French (in the first and third sentence some native speakers spell it "french"), 7. colour, 8. stroke

Odd one out: adjectives

I took some of the words from dictionary.com. 

Ex. Each of the following sets of adjectives consists of three words which are synonyms or near-synonyms and one word whose meaning is different. Choose the word which is different.

1. gaudy; garish; perky; chintzy
2. impressionable; gullible; naive; impregnable
3. mauve; bland; dull; insipid
4. antediluvian; prehistoric; primordial; precarious
5. bubbly; flabby; sparkling; effervescent
6. vitriolic; harsh; scathing; meretricious
7. apt; irrespective; pertinent; germane
8. bereft; deprived; pernicious; lacking
9. inclement; tempestuous; stormy; feigned
10. imperial; royal; regal; infernal
11. immodest; boastful; bragging; indecent
12. incandescent; loquacious; luminous; radiant
13. bemused; perused; perplexed; befuddled

In the following examples the items are idioms and other phrases used as adjectives.

14. off colour; under the weather; right as rain; below par
15. on cloud nine; as happy as Larry; over the moon; over the hill

KEY
1. perky, 2. impregnable, 3. mauve, 4. precarious, 5. flabby, 6. meretricious, 7. irrespective, 8. pernicious, 9. feigned, 10. infernal, 11. indecent, 12. loquacious, 13. perused, 14. right as rain, 15. over the hill

Word stress: The '-able' suffix

 The word able is pronounced /'eɪbəl/ or /'eɪbl̩/. The difference in transcription is just a matter of how we treat the syllabic allophone of /l/, i.e. whether we write the schwa /ə/ symbol or a stroke under the /l/. Some sources regard this unstressed vowel as /ʊ/. The diphthong /eɪ/ occurs in words like table, cable, fable and the name Mabel. 

By contrast, the suffix -able does not have a stressed vowel at all and is pronounced /-əbəl/ or /-əbl̩/. Many foreign speakers of English stress the suffix unnecessarily, which can make the word impossible for listeners to understand. Anecdotal examples include a Polish speaker of English pronouncing comfortable as come for table.

The suffix -ible has same pronunciation as -able.

Ex. 1 Put the following words containing -able in two categories: a. with a stressed sound /eɪ/ or b. with the unstressed /ə/. Which syllable carries primary stress?

preferable, publishable, vegetable, stable, unstable, capable, comfortable, drinkable, portable, irreconcilable, indescribable, unfathomable, unbreakable, sable, remarkable

Ex. 2 Do the following words contain -able or -ible?

leg__ble, illeg__ble, ed__ble, imagin__ble, ined__ble, respons__ble, permiss__ble, inflamm__ble

KEY

1. a. stable - 1st, unstable - 2nd, sable - 1st

b. preferable, publishable, vegetable, capable, comfortable, drinkable, portable - 1st, irreconcilable - 4th, indescribable - 3rd, unfathomable, unbreakable, remarkable - 2nd

2. Inflammable and imaginable have "a"; all the other words have "i"

Linking sounds: /j/, /w/ and /r/

 In February 2019 I wrote a post about linking and intrusive /r/ in connected speech. Linking /j/ and /w/ work in a similar way:

a. linking /j/ connects /iː/, [i] or a diphthong ending in /-ɪ/ to the next word which begins with a vowel,
b. linking /w/ connects /uː/ or a diphthong ending in /-ʊ/ to the next word which begins with a vowel,
c. /r/ is used after the remaining vowel sounds: /ɑː/, /ɜː/, /ɔː/, /ɪə/, /eə/, /ʊə/, /ə/.

Ex. Read the following sentences and find the places where you should use a linking /j/ or /w/.

1. I think it's great news for you and me.
2. Did you see Alan's car yesterday? It's blue and green.
3. Sue and Ray have a cow and five chickens. 
4. Ray always says he is fed up with the hard work.
5. Joe isn't fond of coffee or tea; he drinks water instead.
6. Germany is larger than Austria and Switzerland. 
7. 'How about a day at the beach?' 'But it's windy outside. I don't want the wind to blow in my face.'

Are there any places where we use a linking or intrusive /r/?

KEY

1. you /w/ and, 2. see /j/ Alan's; blue /w/ and, 3. Sue /w/ and; cow /w/ and, 4. Ray /j/ always; he /j/ is, 5. Joe /w/ isn't; coffee /j/ or, 6. Germany /j/ is, 7. How /w/ about; day /j/ at; windy /j/ outside; blow /w/ in

/r/: 5. water /r/ instead; 6. Austria /r/ or

Devoicing of voiced consonants

Voice and voicelessness in English consonants can be a complicated topic. Describing the phonology of English has never been an objective of this blog, which is why in today's post I describe the basics which can be confusing to Polish students of English in particular and may also be similarly difficult to speakers of other languages where the devoicing of consonants works in a comparable way, e.g. other Slavic languages, German or Finnish.

English has a few pairs of voiced-voiceless consonants, namely /b/-/p/, /d/-/t/, /g/-/k/, /v/-/f/, /z/-/s/, /ð/-/θ/, /ʒ/-/ʃ/, /dʒ/-/tʃ/. All of these are separate phonemes, distinct categories in the English speaker's mind. In languages such as Polish in some environments (around voiceless consonants, at the end of a word) a voiced consonant clearly becomes a voiceless one: the word mewa 'seagull' has /v/ represented by the letter <w>, but the Genitive plural mew before a pause contains /f/, as does mewka, a diminutive form (a small or young seagull) with the sequence /fk/ represented by <wk>. The same could be said about /b/ in żaba 'frog' and /p/ in żab 'frog-Gen-pl' and żabka 'little frog'.

Now when we look at the English words bird and frog, we will see that they are not spelt phonemically the same as Bert and frock respectively. Even though the /d/ and /g/ are devoiced at the end of a word before a pause or a consonant (i.e. excluding the bird is, the frogs where /d/ and /g/ clearly remain), these are not the same as /t/ or /k/. What is the difference then and why do English speakers distinguish between these consonants?

The difference lies in two things: vowel length and fortis-lenis. Before a voiced consonant, even when devoiced, the vowel is a fraction of a second longer: a short vowel becomes relatively longer (but we do not use the length mark [ː] to indicate that) and a long vowel or diphthong becomes even slightly longer than it would be when followed by a voiceless sound. The fortis-lenis distinction is just a Latin way of naming the force or loudness with which consonants are produced. A voiceless consonant like /p/, /s/ or /f/ is pronounced somewhat more loudly than a devoiced version (allophone) of /b/, /z/ or /v/. 

In the 20th century linguists described devoicing in English as partial. These days, however, they tend to write about devoicing, though bearing in mind that a devoiced consonant does not sound identical to a voiceless one.

Devoicing matters in learning about the pronunciation of the Past Simple or past participle <-ed> as well as the Present Simple, plural or possessive (Saxon genitive) <-s>, <-es> and <-'s>. When a textbook mentions that /d/ or /z/ should be pronounced after a voiced consonant, semi-vowel or vowel, that does not mean no devoicing can occur - that depends on the environment, the surrounding sounds or pauses. The vowel length and fortis-lenis differences apply regardless.

As time goes by and pronunciation changes some new distinctions can appear and others can be lost. One good example is /ʍ/, the voiceless equivalent of /w/. Nowadays heard in the speech of some speakers of regional dialects in the UK and the USA, it was the recommended standard pronunciation of <wh> in words like what, when, where, whale, overwhelm and whence. These days the distinction is omitted e.g. in RP-based pronunciation textbooks and words like whales and Wales are treated as homophones.

The final remark is that what I know about the issue is based on studying British RP and occasionally learning about the American GA accent. Other rules may apply in Englishes spoken by native speakers, bilinguals or non-natives around the world.

I deliberately used no reference sources to create this post. Let me know in the comments if anything requires correction. I may be a linguist but I do not consider myself an expert on the theoretical side of phonology.