The word 'pool' is driving me potty!

[18yearstooold]

Trying to identify alternatives to /ue/ in a list of words

I have a stupid accent and when I say pool it is neither an /u/ or an /oo/

Gah!!!!!

In linguistics classes at my university, we would have separated the 'y' part from the 'oo' - so all of them would contain the long-U spelling (can't do the phonetic alphabet symbol for that), and some of them would also have a 'y' phoneme as well. It would depend on how strongly the 'y' part was said as to whether it was included as a separate phoneme or not, and we would spend a while after each exercise debating things like this - but for this one, it was a clear enough sound (especially given the existence of minimal pairs such as 'mute' and 'moot') that we would have been expected to record it separately. However, we had the strong advantage of having the phonetic alphabet with which to record things, rather than having to use labels such as 'long-u', which are not as clearly defined.

But for the basic question, yes, in my accent at least, 'pool' would have the same vowel as 'blue'. There would always be some controversy about the 'glide' sound before sounds like 'l', which in this case, is almost a 'w' sound (but not enough, in our accents, that we would have notated it separately, when doing phonemic transcription)

In linguistics I would also separate it but not for four year olds learning phonics

Wow - mrz must be a mind reader!

Yes, as she surmised (and you can afford £7) if you want to search MN Book Reviews, on Phonics, there is a book you may find useful.

AND I've just checked out current prices for you, and, in this instance Amazon are cheap.

Recently, I have found The Book Depository can be MUCH cheaper in some instances (though not in this case).

So - if you are buying books, DO NOT assume Amazon is always best. Often it is, but not always.

Also worth trying, The Book People and The Works. And maybe others, that I don't know about.

PS: is it "Amazon is" or "Amazon are" ?

I would go for amazon is

Thank you everyone

This conversation is certainly going to help with my critical analysis of phonics next year!

New in my accent is n-ew not n-yoo -so many variations which sound tiny but I know can be significant

When teaching phonics you should always teach to the accent of the pupils in your class not to a standard form or your own accent if it's different.

One problem with the /oo/ and /ue/ sounds, apart from having slightly different pronunciations in different accents, is that after /l/ they can sound quite similar: flu/flew, fluke.

The main spellings for the /ue/ sound are 'u-e' (or open u) and 'ue':
e.g. use, unit, cute, duty, reduce, salute ....cue, due, argue, avenue....

In the stem of words the spelling is fairly dominant, in at least 137 words, with just 26 exceptions:
eucalyptus, ewer, feud, feudal, jewel, lewd, neutral, newt,

nuclear, beauty, nuisance, pewter, pneumatic, pseudo, rheumatism,
sewage, steward, suicide, suitable, suitcase, juice, Tuesday,
you/ewe/yew, youth.

In endings the spellings are less predictable. (I can list those too, if it would help, but u would have to ask for them, otherwise some people might call it 'spam' and try to get me banned for posting a list.)

One thing which helps to muddy the /oo/ and /u-e/ issue is that 'u-e' is often also used to spell long /oo/ (rude, crude, brute, crucial...).

??????????

Mash flu/flew/fluke sound identical never mind similar

Mrz why the scream?

Because Masha is well known on more than one forum for popping up whenever phonics is mentioned and posting random lists. Which never make sense and just confuse. As you pointed out the sound in flu/flew/floor are identical. And I'm not sure what's going on with that list of words starting with eucalyptus.

Ah fair enough

18yearstooold
I am intensely disliked by phonics evangelists who claim that all English literacy problems are due merely to insufficient teaching of the relationships between its 44 sounds and their spellings. - Having spent many years taking a really close look at English spelling, my view is that its inconsistencies are the main reason why so many children have difficulties with learning to read and write.

Several of them have repeatedly tried to get me banned from MN whenever i have listed words which show how irregular the spellings for a particular sound are. Because they cannot argue with them, SP fanatics like Mrz tend to respond with just some kind of emoticon like a scream.

Sorry 18years I just felt it wasn't helpful or accurate my apologies

Masha I don't know you so saying I dislike you is another of your total fabrications

For most people the sounds in flu/flew/floor are certainly not identical,
nor quite so in flu/flew/fluke.

Many pronounce 'flu/flew' as 'floo' - with a long /oo/
and 'fluke' more like 'flyook'.

Was that list supposed to be the 26 exceptions to the ue sound being spelt as 'UE' or 'u_e'. Because it seems like a mixture of /ue/ and /long oo/ to me. And I think you are going to find that if those words are exceptions there are many more than 26. How is Tuesday an exception by the way?

But phonics teaching systems recognise that not all words in use in the English language follow phonic rules

Where's the argument?

Mrz I thought it was funny

Didn't know you could scream on mumsnet

18yearstooold
Phonics evangelists claim that u need nothing but phonics for the teaching of reading. I and many others disagree.

RafaIsTheKingOfClay
Tuesday is an exception because it's not spelt Tuseday, as in 'use' or 'abuse'.

Among the 7,000 most used English words which i analysed, i could find only 26 exceptions for an open u, as in 'tube' and 'tubular' in the stem words. U might well be able to find some more among rarely used words, but not in the main English vocabulary that 16-yr-olds can be expected to have met in the course of their education.

There are very very few words in English that don't 'follow phonic rules' if you teach enough of the code. And even the few that don't will be mostly decodable with just one part of it being 'tricky'.

Let's take 'beauty' for example. This is the one word in masha's exception list that contains a part of the code that is really a unique or very rare spelling for the sound /ue/. Most children will probably already know the b, t and y as /ee/ at the end of 2 syllable words by the time they encounter it. So it's just a case of identifying the grapheme for the children, then getting them to blend or segment it in the same way they would for any more regular word that does follow the rules.

Correction:
Phonics evangelists claim that u need nothing but phonics for the teaching of reading AND WRITING, i.e. not just reading.

But you said 'ue' was a main spelling. How can it be a main spelling and an exception?

Europe, few, new, suit, fruit...

I'm getting confused. I teach phase 5 phonics at the moment and Tuesday is a perfect example of 'ue'. Like cue, due, statue, rescue.

English often uses positional spellings, e.g. different in the stem of words and in endings (date, day; bone, no).

For the /yoo/ sound, an open u (use, music, Tudor) is the main spelling in the stem words (in 138 with 26 exceptions).
In endings the most used spelling is 'ue' (in 20 words), with 19 exceptions.

It's not you, don't worry. Think Masha forgot she described 'UE' as a main spelling (which it is) and it's making the list look a bit confusing.

Ew, ui, and eu are uncommon but not exceptionally rare either.

Actually ui is quite rare as /ue/, it's more commonly / long oo/, depending on accent. I'll accept that one as nuisance is probably the only word I can think of with that spelling of /ue/.