Brian D. Buckley

English is infamous for being hard to pronounce. In many other languages, like Spanish, Russian, and Japanese, each vowel makes pretty much one sound always, and that’s the end of it. In English, each vowel has a short sound and a long sound at a minimum: for example, “e” has a short sound in “net” and a long sound in “bleed.” And the short and long sounds don’t even half cover it. You’ve got the silent “e” (in “mime”), the schwa “e” (in “concatenation”), the long-A “e” (in “fiance”), and countless other sounds.

Our vowels are so rebellious, we can’t even decide which letters are vowels. What’s the formula we memorize? “A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y.” Chalk one up for consistency.

Our consonants, on the other hand, are pretty well-behaved. “A” may be all over the map, but “B” is solid and dependable.

Right?

It turns out, our language is even more rebellious than you might imagine. About a month ago, I was reading The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way, and I came across this astonishing claim: not a single letter in the English alphabet can be relied upon for a consistent pronunciation.

Because I’m the nerdy OCD sort, I decided to test this out. On my own at first, and then enlisting Google for help, I went through all twenty-six letters. For each one, I tried to find two different words that showcase an inconsistent pronunciation for that letter. Which, by the way, was a lot harder than it might sound. For example, without looking at the list, see if you can think of an answer for “Z.”

Here’s what I came up with:

A – happy, maybe
B – ball, debt
C – cat, fleece
D – dog, Wednesday
E – net, bleed
F – fluffy, of
G – great, generous
H – hippo, honor
I – igloo, rite
J – judge, marijuana
K – kill, knowledge
L – log, quesadilla
M – mace, mnemonic
N – near, column
O – brood, office
P – papa, photo
Q – inquire, clique
R – rope, sommelier
S – sale, shift
T – tussle, thimble
U – umbrella, used
V – ???
W – wide, wry
X – fox, xylophone
Y – yellow, cry
Z – zoo, rendezvous

I came up with something for every letter but V. That’s not to say that V is consistent either, just that I couldn’t seem to find a counterexample.

In many cases (like “debt” and “Wednesday”) the alternate pronunciation was simply silence. That’s certainly a form of inconsistency.

You might be tempted to complain that some of these words (“quesadilla,” “sommelier”) don’t really count, because they’re foreign words borrowed into English. As you complain, though, remember that “complain” was itself borrowed from the Old French “complaindre.” Most of our language is borrowed, in fact. No reason to be hard on the new recruits – regardless of origin, it’s all English now.

We just don’t know how to pronounce it.

What power do you want?

You could get Superman-style flying, which is way better than regular flying: you can go out into space, deep underwater, anywhere you want, as fast as you want. Fancy a day trip to the Red Planet?

Or you could stake out a little Wolverine action, with super-fast healing and an adamantium skeleton. (Silly spellcheck, of course that’s a word!) Razor-sharp claws that rip apart your own flesh every time you use them, are, uh, optional.

The sky is far from the limit. Why not give yourself teleportation, and extend that day trip to the Andromeda Galaxy? Or immortality, so you can wait for the Andromeda Galaxy to come to you? Or telekinesis, which is basically a fancy word for magic, and includes flying as a special case.

(Really, spellcheck? Teleportation is nonsense but telekinesis is totally legit?)

Much as the Airbender movie sucked, the actual bending of air, water, fire, etc. would be pretty undeniably sweet. Another special case of telekinesis, I guess – which, come to think of it, could cover an awful lot of things. After all, what’s invisibility but photon-bending? What’s Magneto but an iron bender?

And nothing says it has to be flashy. How about going the practical route: Find-Your-Keys Man? Remember-Where-We-Parked Girl?

Or, for the debate tonight: Hyperbole Detection Lad! Logical Fallacy Enumeration Woman! Mr. Ad Hominem, non sequitur powers activate! Ah, if only.

Me personally? Well, I’m a nerd (shocker!) so my dream power is pretty nerdy. I’d like to be able to touch a book and instantly, permanently have all of its information dumped into my brain. I’d walk around libraries, just tapping encyclopedias…*swoon.* I suppose you’d get more knowledge by channeling the Internet into your neurons, but I’m old-school. Besides, who really wants 4chan inside their skull?

That’s me, though. What about you? What’s your super power?

What is it about Zelda?

In an age of high-polygon heroes and high-def screens, what’s made me return to the low-res, tiny-screen universe of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, which was first released for Game Boy almost twenty years ago?

Part of the game’s appeal, of course, is the same appeal all Zelda games have: well-crafted dungeons, a huge overworld, giant bosses, and spotless gameplay. Items aren’t just for killing monsters: they’re tools of exploration, opening passages blocked by rubble, whisking you across deadly chasms. You have to keep playing, because you’re just one item away from finding out what’s in that next room.

But it’s more than that. While Link’s Awakening is standard Zelda in many ways, it’s also quite unique.

For one thing, it’s a Zelda without Zelda – one of only two games in the series not to feature the titular princess. (The other was Majora’s Mask, which was pretty odd in its own right.) Link shipwrecks on the island of Koholint, which is no part of the series’s main world, Hyrule. Throughout the game, there are strong hints that Koholint is just a dream world – and that the dream may or may not be Link’s. This Matrix-like doubt about the nature of reality lends a subtle psychological twist to a mostly-physical adventure. One of the bosses taunts: “You don’t seem to know what kind of island this is.” Indeed.

But don’t let these ontological puzzles fool you into thinking Link’s Awakening is some grim, brooding meditation on the meaning of illusion. The game is funny. When Link’s quasi-girlfriend Marin joins him on his quest, he holds her over his head like an item. “You got Marin!” the game informs you. Which is important, because you need her to wake up a giant walrus. So you can get inside the next dungeon, which is shaped like a fish.

Yeah.

I first played Awakening back in high school, and I never did beat it. I think I got to the seventh dungeon, got stuck, and just didn’t pick it up again. But Link’s back, and he’s not messing around this time. He came here to do two things: wake up giant walruses, and chew bubble gum. And he’s all out of bubble gum.

What games have you played lately?