Log in or Sign up

The braggadocio recipe

  • Love

A list of 209 words by Prolagus.

About

A selection of English* words ending with a vowel (except "y", "ea", ie", "ee", "oo", "ea", "ou") that is REALLY pronounced.
My favorite English words, by the way.
The good twin of The macabre dough.

(*In a broad sense: words you use as English terms and not as pure loan words. For example, barista is not an English word - not yet, at least!)

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • sionnach List abuse! Rye and lye. Dec 1, 2008

  • Prolagus Thank you, john. Many entries are not mine. I noticed there are some problems with this list so I temporarily closed it, and will (unfortunately) delete some of the entries.
    But now, it's dinner time in Sardinia, and my mother made her stuffed tomatoes... yum. Jul 14, 2008

  • johnmperry Actually "lingerie" is rhymed with "holiday" only by those who don't know how to pronounce it. And "feng shui" isn't English as such, it's pinyin, hence the pronunciation - "fong shway". So it is correct to rhyme it with "cachet". Or "holiday", if we want an English word. Jul 14, 2008

  • frogapplause Yes! The "comandante dei vigili del fuoco" is here. And it's about time, too. Jul 8, 2008

  • Prolagus This list is temporarily closed to the public - we're sorry for the inconvenience. :-) Jul 8, 2008

  • Prolagus See bar. Jul 8, 2008

  • rolig English has always had a fairly open attitude toward absorbing foreign words, ever since the Norman invasion and words like colour, labour, honour, etc. came into the language. And the process continues today, so we don't have a strong sense of what is "really English" and what is a borrowing, unlike in certain countries where there are actually people who get paid to worry about whether a word is truly Slovene or French or whatever. Some borrowings become naturalized, in the sense that everyone knows how to use them and inflect like older English words, but they still retain something exotic. A sari will never be just a dress, and moccasins will always be associated with teepees and feathered headdresses, at least to me. Sometimes we like our foreign borrowings so much we invent foreign-sounding pronunciations for them, like lingerie, which rhymes with "holiday" to make it sound even more French. We love un-English diacritics, and so keep the marks on words like naïveté (who ever says "naivety"?) and café, long after they have been naturalized. Even borrowings from more exotic toungues get mispronounced just to make them more fun-sounding, e.g. feng shui, which rhymes with cachet. Jul 8, 2008

  • frogapplause This thread has reached maximum occupancy. There's no place left to sit or stand. And my weenus is tired! It's just a matter of time before the fire marshal shows up. I think I'll return to Asa's "Icelandic List". There are plenty of seats available there -- and enough súrsaðir hrútspungar for everyone.
    Jul 8, 2008

  • Prolagus I will be back on Wordie later, with a story about the word bar. :-) Jul 8, 2008

  • qroqqa Actually virtually all such words are loans. True natives include 'ado', 'akimbo'(?), 'do', 'go', 'lo', 'no', 'so'; a few others were (presumably) coined in English, such as 'bra', 'dynamo', 'hi-fi', 'hippo', 'photo', 'typo' but cut from borrowed words.

    By the way, you might want to exclude any of the type 'doe' or 'dye' I've added: the final letter could be considered silent. (Vowels are sounds, not letters, so this is not a clear criterion, but I think it'd fit your intention.) Jul 8, 2008

  • bilby I wouldn't have added words like studio as Pro specified final vowel not dipthong.

    To some extent I have to dispute Pro's sense of what is Italian. Take bar for example. It doesn't look Italian. It can't be put in plural form like a genuine masculine singular. And yet it's impossible to talk about life in Italy (at least in modern times) without this word. Lexically it might seem unItalian but semantically it is so highly integrated into all kinds of discourse that it simply has to be considered Italian. English has very few texts from 700 years ago. Italian has more. It's easier for Italians to wax nostalgic about what is really Italian because the sheer weight of the historical yardstick is unkind to newcomers. I just don't think it's valid. One could also point out that English has a significant international presence that Italian does not. To some extent English has been able to shore up its appeal by rapidly assimilating foreign words. Jul 8, 2008

  • jennarenn English is a language of loanwords. That's why we have several names for everything (dresser v. chest of drawers), and so many spelling quirks. I would have said that sari was a loanword, while ennui was fully English by now. Each to his own. Jul 8, 2008

  • qroqqa I think it's very hard to say what are normal English words, but I'm trying to stick to your prescription. Anyone can wear a sari, go to a sauna, eat a gateau or a risotto; anyone might be able to identify a lobelia, daphne, or gardenia without knowing any botanical names at all. Morocco (and russia) are kinds of leather. In none of these cases is there any strong sense of its being a borrowing that hasn't yet been naturalized.

    There are several I myself wouldn't allow on this list: cinema verite, ennui, fugu; these still feel like marked borrowings to me. Jul 8, 2008

  • Prolagus I learned a lesson about English here.
    In Italian, we have a strong feeling of which words belong to our language and which ones don't: we can put ketchup on our hamburgers, eat an omelette with a glass of vin brulé, and hug a peluche while sitting in front of our computers, but none of these words will ever be felt as "Italian". It seems to me that English doesn't work the same way. :-) Jul 8, 2008

  • sionnach Gee, I was going to add ukase to this list, but the dictionary tells me not to. Learn something new every day. Jul 8, 2008

  • reesetee Geez, jmp, it's Pro's list. The list owner should have the right to edit as he pleases, no? Jun 16, 2008

  • Prolagus jmp, please note that I'm letting people add every kind of word, even though I don't like all of them, provided that they match the list description (that I changed a couple of times in order to be clearer).
    This means that I partly disagree with some people's choices... and I love some other words, like maybe, taxi, ski, and more generally those words that a native speaker would hardly consider exotic. Braggadocio is in the list because it all started with that word!
    Having said so, thank you all for your help! Jun 15, 2008

  • dontcry Well now... Jun 15, 2008

  • johnmperry coca and cola are both words, so I added them back in - this is a twofer day!

    OK, so now substantiate hi-fi. What word is that? Or thesauri - a Latin plural of a Greek singular. And if you're including Latin plurals ...

    Basically, if a word is in the dictionary, it's a word. Jun 15, 2008

  • Prolagus I removed all the brand names from the list... Jun 14, 2008

  • bilby How can anybody add c*ca-c*la to this list? *fuming* Jun 14, 2008

  • Prolagus I say "thank you" to everybody, then I raise a question:
    would you define English words the ones you added? If so, that's fine! Jun 11, 2008

  • sionnach guru, kuru, kudzu, fugu, synecdoche, epitome, ormolu, epitome, verruca, imbroglio, nepenthe, calliope, Jun 11, 2008

  • Prolagus Oh, I forgot: no "-phobia"e please!!! Jun 11, 2008

  • Prolagus Ha! Jun 11, 2008

  • Prolagus It's the kind of problem I'm having. I'm looking for English words - even if I know it's hard to define what "English" means... Jun 11, 2008

  • bilby Maybe :-) Jun 11, 2008

  • dontcry Are all of these really English words, though? Jun 11, 2008

  • Prolagus By the way, I know that there are lots of vegetables (and other food) that belong here. I'm not sure whether to add them or not. Jun 11, 2008