On another thread, we've been talking about the word 'washrag.' YOu know, it's basically a ridiculous word. It's the shr combination that does it.

Well, my sister used to be on the switchboard of a place where she handled maybe 200 calls a day. One day she asked my sister-in-law, who teaches English as a second language, how better to handle calls from foreigners, especially Asians.

The teacher explained that many other languages do not put consonants together the way we do. Thus, an Asian caller might not be able to handle the name 'Strong,' and will say Stong or even Song.

About the same time, I joined a church with quite a few people who never learned to read very well. I'd been used to churches where you simply put a hymn in front of people and assumed everybody could read it, no matter how involved the lyrics got. No more.

That caused me to be aware of lyrics, etc, that have too many consonants in a row. For example, one day I was looking at a hymn that said God will 'smite death's threatening wave.'

Consider the middle of that phrase. '...th'sthr...' Funniest thing, our Chinese pianist does not sing along! (Well, actually, I edited it out before church.)

Another example caught my eye recently: glimpsed. '...mpsd...' What a mouthful!

Recently there was a thread on what the folk process is. For me, part of folk process is getting rid of these lumpy, unsingable clumps of consonant.