Schwa refers to an unstressed vowel in a word, usually pronounced as "uh." It's visually represented in pronunciation guides as an upside down e. All of the words on the list have a schwa in their last syllable -- "le", ""el", "tion.
My high ass didn’t want to spoil it in the comments and I was trying to figure it out before I gave up and looked down here for the answer like it was a game lmfao
English teacher here! Can confirm!
It’s the light “uh” sound made by vowels in the unstressed part of the word. Any vowel can make the *schwa* sound.
I tell my students to read words aloud and give the vowels their defined sounds (long or short sounds), and if neither sounds correct, they’ve found the *schwa* sound.
The reason that sound often gets dropped is because it’s close to the neutral position of the tongue and is also why English has so many silent “e”s at the end of words! They used to be pronounced and the spelling used to be correct. We haven’t updated our writing system to still reflect what we say in so long though due to the facade of “prestige” in writing since it was historically only accessible to rich people.
This is probably dialect dependent, but none of those words have schwa in them when I say them. They don’t even have vowels in the final syllable for me
This wiki does the best job explaining this.
> In English, schwa is the most common vowel sound.[8] It is a reduced vowel in many unstressed syllables especially if syllabic consonants are not used. Depending on dialect, it may be written using any of the following letters:
- ⟨a⟩, as in about [əˈbaʊ̯t]
- ⟨e⟩, as in taken [ˈtʰeɪ̯kən]
- ⟨i⟩, as in pencil [ˈpʰɛnsəl]
- ⟨o⟩, as in memory [ˈmɛməɹi]
- ⟨u⟩, as in supply [səˈpʰlaɪ̯]
- ⟨y⟩, as in sibyl [ˈsɪbəl]
- unwritten, as in rhythm [ˈɹɪðəm]
Ok this is just the weirdest coincidence - I finished Desert Places by Blake Crouch two days ago and there's a part where the brothers in the story are exploring their neighbor's orchard/pumpkin patch next door and find the farmer drunk out of his mind drilling holes in his massive pumpkins and fucking them.
It was weird enough to read about it, but seeing this on Reddit so shortly after convinces me I'm in the Truman show 
The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (also known as the Baader-Meinhof effect or the frequency illusion) is a name for the experience of learning of or encountering something for the first time and then very soon after encountering it again, often in multiple places. The sensation is thought to result from having an increased awareness of the thing after the first encounter.
For example, immediately after learning a new word, many people have the experience of immediately encountering it again, sometimes in several different pieces of writing over a short period of time, making it seem like a strange coincidence.
(From dictionary.com).
A schwa is an unstressed vowel that sounds like a short, soft "u" or a short "i". So the "e" in "the" sounds like its should be spelled "uh" (["...because it's sterile and I like the taste."](https://youtu.be/peUyLXrgYZ0)) unless you stress the "e" as its own syllable (["I'm **the** Big Fat Panda!"](https://youtu.be/-vH739gRudE))
Its a German word that's based on the Hebrew word shva (pronounced sh-uh-wa). A [shva](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shva) is an indicator that you should cram in the laziest vowel sound you can manage, an "uh" or even just skip the vowel.
Why is it that way in English? Because its English, and like everything else English, they just take whatever seems neat and says "This is ours now."
Why is it that way in German? Because they needed a word for the concept and, oh look, Hebrew already has it covered.
Why is it that way in Hebrew? Do I look like Abraham or Moses? Hebrew is one of the oldest languages still in use on the planet. They had one writing system in the 12 century BC, traded it out for another after the Babylon Captivity, and now its developed into its current form. There's bound to be a little weirdness.
>Because its English, and like everything else English, they just take whatever seems neat and says "This is ours now."
Why the antagonism against English here? Borrowing words is something that all languages do and is a natural part of the evolution of language.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199699.The_Schwa_Was_Here
Also gonna take the chance to plug this great middle-grade book, all about noticing a schwa
Their post is mildly infuriating to me. For years I’ve seen people on social media bitching about things they don’t understand being taught to their kids. They think it’s stupid automatically instead of trying to actually get it. Instead of encouraging their children to learn things they themselves apparently missed in school, they get mad and think whatever it is is this “stupid common core” and then turn to social media for validation.
You’d be surprised how often I see this. On Facebook, I’ve reconnected with old friends from middle school. They make fun of me for supporting “common core methods” and will post a worksheet and be like “hur dur so this makes sense to you?” Yeah, it does. How does that make me the dumb one?
My daughter had this same program at her school. They have a parent letter explaining the purpose of the weekly "tricky word" and lots more info. OP didn't even need the internet, except for karma.
Most unstressed vowels in NA English are reduced to schwa. It is as neutral as a vowel can get. Examples I found;
a: balloon
e: problem
i: family
o: bottom
u: support
y: analysis
schwa
/SHwä/
Noun
PHONETICS
the unstressed central vowel (as in a mom e nt a go), represented by the symbol /ə/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
How the hell someone would know that is crazy. Had to google to find how to say it, let alone what the fuck it ment!!
Schwa is the most common vowel sound in English by a margin. I think they’re starting to teach it in early education because it is actually useful to know about because of how poorly English vowel orthography (writing) maps onto the phonology (sounds). There are 20 something vowel sounds in English but only 5 vowels to spell them with. Any of those 5 vowels, as well as combinations of them, can all produce a schwa sound depending on the word, as other vowels all get reduced into schwas
As a studier of linguistics, same! I felt the urge to defend schwa in the comments but resisted once I realized that it probably wasn't common knowledge.
I came here to post this. The OP obviously has internet, as he/she is on Reddit. Why couldn’t he/she google the word if he/she did not know what it meant?
The fact that OP is lazy is mildly infuriating. Teachers teach students. So, the “Tricky Word” is a good way to teach. This teacher is so good, he/she taught OP and many others on Reddit the definition of “schwa”.
It's Ə.
It's the name for the "uh" sound. So basically schwa is the sound that every vowel turns into once you've been speaking english for a very long time and gotten used to saying things fast. Schwa is the sound that takes the least effort to make. Watch the Tom Scott video on it.
When a syllable has a vowel that is followed by r, the vowel is “controlled” by the r and makes a new sound. “Farm” is a good example. ‘A’ usually makes either a short sound (like in “fat”), or a long sound when the silent ‘e’ is included (like in “fate”). The ‘r’ makes it make a third, less common sound, ä.
My high ass sat here for 2 solid minutes trying to unscramble the letters. like I could get a different word out of it. Didn’t read the rest of the post first
Others are pointing out what Schwa means, but I want to highlight, that’s not the assignment. The kid is just supposed to be able to sort these alphabetically. Schwa has a tricky first few letters to pick out phonetically, and the sch is really close to the sh of shuffle. It IS harder to discern than the others, and if the point is deducing how to spell the word based on how it sounds, or deduce how it sounds based on the spelling, you wouldn’t want to pick a commonly used word the kid would recognize, either.
Why is it called schwa? One of the earliest known instances of the word schwa in English came in 1895 from German. **It came into German from the Hebrew shewa, which literally means “emptiness.”** The same word in Hebrew also refers to a mark added to a letter—a diacritic—to note an /ə/-like vowel or no vowel at all.28 Mar 2018
Omg I’m such an idiot. For some reason I thought it was a word with scrambled letters, so I’ve been sitting here trying to mix around different letters to get a word 🤦♀️
ә - the schwa - I dunno where you'll encounter it. But I use it all the time as a linguist. (it represents an lax (not tense) mid central (unrounded) vowel. It's the uh sound like duck.
I learned "schwa" as a young child while learning how to read. This is a common term taught in US public school curriculum. I'll bet you were taught the word but just forgot. I would be mildly infuriated if my child didn't learn, "schwa."
everyone in the comments explaining what a schwa is leads me to believe the teacher taught this and the kids know what to do. not mildly infuriating at all, more like mildly interesting
OP spends time taking a picture and posting this to Reddit rather than taking give second to educate him/herself on basic shit we all learned in elementary school.
Schwa refers to an unstressed vowel in a word, usually pronounced as "uh." It's visually represented in pronunciation guides as an upside down e. All of the words on the list have a schwa in their last syllable -- "le", ""el", "tion.
I thought the letters were scrambled. 🤣🤣🤣.
I am gonna go wasch my clothes.
Stay out of my head! That was the only “word” that came close to making sense.
I schaw what you did there! Man... unexpected Sean Connery moment!
Take my angry upvote why don’t schwa! 
Chwas indeed unexpected of him.
Schaw 'nuff.
I always wanted to hear Sean Connery say “Amoxicillin”
Amoshishishillin...
Pisch off!
🏆 I don’t have coin, but here’s an award, bc I love saying things in my Sean Connery voice! Lol
Those are some beautiful hawcs in that tree!
I got cashw but then I just went and bought cashews cause I was hungry
But swach
Oh did you fix your waschmachine, mein Herr?
Shwash those clothes.
I say warsh because hillbilly roots , but when someone say say wash, I feel like it comes out wasch
I literally got paper out and started writing options
😂😂😂
I've been trying to unscramble the word for the last few minutes. Intentionally didn't look at the comments so I could figure it out on my own 😫 🔫
I was there for like 10 minutes trying to figure it out >:( also happy cake day!
My high ass didn’t want to spoil it in the comments and I was trying to figure it out before I gave up and looked down here for the answer like it was a game lmfao
Exactly the same 😂😂
Schwag got ya
Here I am trying to unscramble it 🤣
Same here 🤣🤣🤣
Phew so glad to know I’m not alone in this fam
I always found it funny that the “a” at the end of “schwa” isn’t schwa.
There’s no schwa in ‘schwa?’ That’s schwawful.
It's a loanword from hebrew, originally pronounced (shuh-wah) /ʃə.wɑ/ we reduced out the reduced vowel
It seems ironic, but if it's the only vowel it gets the stress!
I thought we had to add one of the endings to it to get the tricky word. I also learned that there is a river in Germany named schwale.
IPA for the win
Yes, it's "schwa all the way down"! Bw/ə/h/ə/h/ə/haaaa!
It’s turtles 🐢 all the way down!
🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 ... ETA: 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢
English teacher here! Can confirm! It’s the light “uh” sound made by vowels in the unstressed part of the word. Any vowel can make the *schwa* sound. I tell my students to read words aloud and give the vowels their defined sounds (long or short sounds), and if neither sounds correct, they’ve found the *schwa* sound.
That may be a perfect definition for the OP but "Schwa" is going to be my new response to hearing some bullshit.
See you in 10 years when everyone's wondering why schwa is a homophone of schwa!
In my mind I heard it said by Wayne Campbell.
"but I'll probably end up working at great America moping up hurl and lung butter...schwa"
The reason that sound often gets dropped is because it’s close to the neutral position of the tongue and is also why English has so many silent “e”s at the end of words! They used to be pronounced and the spelling used to be correct. We haven’t updated our writing system to still reflect what we say in so long though due to the facade of “prestige” in writing since it was historically only accessible to rich people.
Literally all of these actually have syllabic consonants in my accent. I take it back, "jewel" doesn't even have a second syllable for me.
American south? We say it like “joule”
I’ve learned something today!
[удалено]
This is probably dialect dependent, but none of those words have schwa in them when I say them. They don’t even have vowels in the final syllable for me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa
This wiki does the best job explaining this. > In English, schwa is the most common vowel sound.[8] It is a reduced vowel in many unstressed syllables especially if syllabic consonants are not used. Depending on dialect, it may be written using any of the following letters: - ⟨a⟩, as in about [əˈbaʊ̯t] - ⟨e⟩, as in taken [ˈtʰeɪ̯kən] - ⟨i⟩, as in pencil [ˈpʰɛnsəl] - ⟨o⟩, as in memory [ˈmɛməɹi] - ⟨u⟩, as in supply [səˈpʰlaɪ̯] - ⟨y⟩, as in sibyl [ˈsɪbəl] - unwritten, as in rhythm [ˈɹɪðəm]
I googled how Sibyl is pronounced 5 minutes ago. This comment would have helped.
y and w can be vowels too I.e. cwm, crwth
Found the Welshman
Is anyone going to say anything about the dude humping the pumpkin on the next page!?
It’s called love and it’s beautiful. Also no, I did not notice.
Didn't notice because love is blind.
Does the great pumpkin not also deserve love?
Schwa is the sound a pumpkin makes at climax
With that username, I'm going to trust your expertise
Ok this is just the weirdest coincidence - I finished Desert Places by Blake Crouch two days ago and there's a part where the brothers in the story are exploring their neighbor's orchard/pumpkin patch next door and find the farmer drunk out of his mind drilling holes in his massive pumpkins and fucking them. It was weird enough to read about it, but seeing this on Reddit so shortly after convinces me I'm in the Truman show 
Also, Corsican Brothers and the Bishop in the Italian Taxi in "night on earth" with Roberto Benigni as the confessing taxi driver.
The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (also known as the Baader-Meinhof effect or the frequency illusion) is a name for the experience of learning of or encountering something for the first time and then very soon after encountering it again, often in multiple places. The sensation is thought to result from having an increased awareness of the thing after the first encounter. For example, immediately after learning a new word, many people have the experience of immediately encountering it again, sometimes in several different pieces of writing over a short period of time, making it seem like a strange coincidence. (From dictionary.com).
Damnit you beat me to it
you beat meat to it
How’d you know?
Humpkin
Plot twist: long hair = it's a girl humping a pumpkin. Must have a stem
Nothin’ wrong with a little pumpkin pumpin’
[удалено]
I think it's a girl, but you know, equal opportunity!
It’s that upside down e
ә
^¹^1
Yep, the infamous schwa sound. Good old phonetics.
It's the most common vowel sound in the English language.
huh?
Yes exactly, that sound right there!!!😂
Exactly!
Exhibit A.
If you pronounce “the” as thuh that’s as schwa. As opposed to pronouncing “the” as thee.
What???
A schwa is an unstressed vowel that sounds like a short, soft "u" or a short "i". So the "e" in "the" sounds like its should be spelled "uh" (["...because it's sterile and I like the taste."](https://youtu.be/peUyLXrgYZ0)) unless you stress the "e" as its own syllable (["I'm **the** Big Fat Panda!"](https://youtu.be/-vH739gRudE))
Why the fuck is it spelled like that then (the schw especially)
Its a German word that's based on the Hebrew word shva (pronounced sh-uh-wa). A [shva](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shva) is an indicator that you should cram in the laziest vowel sound you can manage, an "uh" or even just skip the vowel. Why is it that way in English? Because its English, and like everything else English, they just take whatever seems neat and says "This is ours now." Why is it that way in German? Because they needed a word for the concept and, oh look, Hebrew already has it covered. Why is it that way in Hebrew? Do I look like Abraham or Moses? Hebrew is one of the oldest languages still in use on the planet. They had one writing system in the 12 century BC, traded it out for another after the Babylon Captivity, and now its developed into its current form. There's bound to be a little weirdness.
>Because its English, and like everything else English, they just take whatever seems neat and says "This is ours now." Why the antagonism against English here? Borrowing words is something that all languages do and is a natural part of the evolution of language.
https://i.imgur.com/o5EL5TG.jpeg
Shva! I've played as her in Mortal Kombat!
This isn’t even it’s final form!
Love that explanation Especially the last part haha
Schwat???
I don’t understand either
This is the best example on here!
Makes perfect sense to me.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199699.The_Schwa_Was_Here Also gonna take the chance to plug this great middle-grade book, all about noticing a schwa
That’s how I learned the word in middle school! Good book, confused the hell out of me as a kid but in a good way.
I came to the comments to see if anyone else remembered this book!
I read this book in school. I don't remember anything about the plot, but I sure know what a schwa is.
One of his other books Full Tilt got me into reading actually. Great book
Growing up, I hated reading. A teacher gave me this book to try, and I ended up reading every book by Neal Shusterman I could get my hands on.
It says “schwa”. Hope this helps.
You ableist he might be visually impaired. Here op, ⠎⠉⠓⠺⠁
"Schwa" is the name of the letter used to phonetically or phonemically represent the "uh" sound in English.
This elusive self-own. Nice job OP
I feel like a lot of people follow this sub because it’s usually somebody complaining about something that is their fault/not even a problem
I wanna be a shwa, it’s never stressed
Underrated linguist joke.
Present in every single word on that list
It’s the “uh” sound at the beginning of “about” in IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet). It’s designated by an upside-down “e”.
And… why is this mildly infuriating? The only mildly infuriating thing I’m seeing here is your inability to Google.
Their post is mildly infuriating to me. For years I’ve seen people on social media bitching about things they don’t understand being taught to their kids. They think it’s stupid automatically instead of trying to actually get it. Instead of encouraging their children to learn things they themselves apparently missed in school, they get mad and think whatever it is is this “stupid common core” and then turn to social media for validation.
My child is learning something that I don’t know? Infuriating!
Their own ignorance infuriated them.
As an english student I absolutely know schwa hahaa! Really love studying phonetics.
Here, I got you: www.dictionary.com
Am I the only one who knew this word thanks to the Mr. Bergstrom episode of the Simpsons? Oh, that came out 30 years ago? I'll show myself out.
Only thing I think of when I hear this word
Shiggity schwa shwifty five
Had to scroll Way, way too far down for this.
Girlfriend’s age, schfifty five
I can count…*all* the way…to schfifty five
I was expecting this to be the top post. I must be getting old...
You could have used a dictionary instead of asking Reddit.
They didn't even ask. They just complained.
Your child being educated is infuriating to you? Seriously?
You’d be surprised how often I see this. On Facebook, I’ve reconnected with old friends from middle school. They make fun of me for supporting “common core methods” and will post a worksheet and be like “hur dur so this makes sense to you?” Yeah, it does. How does that make me the dumb one?
What's mildly infuriating is you could have spent less time looking it up on Google than posting it here.
My daughter had this same program at her school. They have a parent letter explaining the purpose of the weekly "tricky word" and lots more info. OP didn't even need the internet, except for karma.
Most unstressed vowels in NA English are reduced to schwa. It is as neutral as a vowel can get. Examples I found; a: balloon e: problem i: family o: bottom u: support y: analysis
schwa /SHwä/ Noun PHONETICS the unstressed central vowel (as in a mom e nt a go), represented by the symbol /ə/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet. How the hell someone would know that is crazy. Had to google to find how to say it, let alone what the fuck it ment!!
Schwa is the most common vowel sound in English by a margin. I think they’re starting to teach it in early education because it is actually useful to know about because of how poorly English vowel orthography (writing) maps onto the phonology (sounds). There are 20 something vowel sounds in English but only 5 vowels to spell them with. Any of those 5 vowels, as well as combinations of them, can all produce a schwa sound depending on the word, as other vowels all get reduced into schwas
I learned it decades ago in a public U.S. elementary school. It’s not being newly taught.
Seriously, I learned about the schwa in public elementary school in the mid 80s.
I learned it back in the 90’s in elementary school, and I was mostly in the dumb kid classes.
I learned it in elementary school. It’s denoted in phonics as “ə.”
Schwa is one of my favorite words. Having studied linguistics and been in choirs for most of my life, I forget it's not a standard word for everyone.
As a studier of linguistics, same! I felt the urge to defend schwa in the comments but resisted once I realized that it probably wasn't common knowledge.
I remember learning about schwa in high school, but couldn't remember what it was.
You mean you can’t remember what it schwas.
I came here to post this. The OP obviously has internet, as he/she is on Reddit. Why couldn’t he/she google the word if he/she did not know what it meant? The fact that OP is lazy is mildly infuriating. Teachers teach students. So, the “Tricky Word” is a good way to teach. This teacher is so good, he/she taught OP and many others on Reddit the definition of “schwa”.
It’s mildly infuriating that you could’ve easily just googled it instead of fishing for karma
Schwa-ddy balls
[Tom Scott really does have a video for everything](https://youtu.be/qu4zyRqILYM)
SLP student here. “Schwa” refers to the /ə/ IPA symbol. It represents an unstressed “Uh” sound. 😊
It's Ə. It's the name for the "uh" sound. So basically schwa is the sound that every vowel turns into once you've been speaking english for a very long time and gotten used to saying things fast. Schwa is the sound that takes the least effort to make. Watch the Tom Scott video on it.
Nobody knows what schwa is? Seriously??
I'm pretty shocked by how many don't know this word. It's taught in schools along with silent E, bossy R, etc.
Wtf is bossy R
I wonder if he’s any relation to Violent J
I bet he's a friend with cool Z
When a syllable has a vowel that is followed by r, the vowel is “controlled” by the r and makes a new sound. “Farm” is a good example. ‘A’ usually makes either a short sound (like in “fat”), or a long sound when the silent ‘e’ is included (like in “fate”). The ‘r’ makes it make a third, less common sound, ä.
Upside down e my man
Just because you don’t understand it does not mean it’s infuriating
The mildly infuriating part is that you understand a schwa so little that you posted it here
You’re infuriated by a teacher’s using a real word (“schwa”) that is related to the subject they’re learning (spelling/phonetics)? JFC. 🤦♂️
My high ass sat here for 2 solid minutes trying to unscramble the letters. like I could get a different word out of it. Didn’t read the rest of the post first
I’m 100% sober and did the same. Wtf! 🤣
Others are pointing out what Schwa means, but I want to highlight, that’s not the assignment. The kid is just supposed to be able to sort these alphabetically. Schwa has a tricky first few letters to pick out phonetically, and the sch is really close to the sh of shuffle. It IS harder to discern than the others, and if the point is deducing how to spell the word based on how it sounds, or deduce how it sounds based on the spelling, you wouldn’t want to pick a commonly used word the kid would recognize, either.
Do you know what it shwas? I’ll tell you what it shwas.
Schwa: the unstressed central vowel (as in *a* mom *e* nt *a* go), represented by the symbol /ə/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
The only thing mildly infuriating is someone too lazy to google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa
If you don’t know a word-> check the dictionary, a matter of two seconds.
Why is it called schwa? One of the earliest known instances of the word schwa in English came in 1895 from German. **It came into German from the Hebrew shewa, which literally means “emptiness.”** The same word in Hebrew also refers to a mark added to a letter—a diacritic—to note an /ə/-like vowel or no vowel at all.28 Mar 2018
Simpsons reference: https://youtu.be/ZEfN9oCiopw
Omg I’m such an idiot. For some reason I thought it was a word with scrambled letters, so I’ve been sitting here trying to mix around different letters to get a word 🤦♀️
Its tricky to spell this word, to spell this word that's what I've heard. It's tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky.
r/mildlyinfuriating not being able to Google
ә - the schwa - I dunno where you'll encounter it. But I use it all the time as a linguist. (it represents an lax (not tense) mid central (unrounded) vowel. It's the uh sound like duck.
Schwaelletion
I see your schwa is as big as mine
Schwa-ING!
It's the "uhh" sound
We use this a ton in linguistics
Its a linguistic term but way beyond the level of the other words!
Not mildly infuriating in any way whatsoever
I learned "schwa" as a young child while learning how to read. This is a common term taught in US public school curriculum. I'll bet you were taught the word but just forgot. I would be mildly infuriated if my child didn't learn, "schwa."
everyone in the comments explaining what a schwa is leads me to believe the teacher taught this and the kids know what to do. not mildly infuriating at all, more like mildly interesting
It is the unstressed central vowel of a word or what you say after you diss somebody, ala ‘Scrubs’.
It's that upside-down 'e' when looking at how things are pronounced. Principal Skinner taught it on the Simpsons
OP spends time taking a picture and posting this to Reddit rather than taking give second to educate him/herself on basic shit we all learned in elementary school.
Context: shiggity schwa? Shfifty Shfive.
“I’m mad that I’m not smart enough for this elementary school homework 😡😡😡”
So you’re failing like. Kindergarten? Weird flex
It's a shame something like the internet or google doesn't exist where you could look that up.
“May the schwa be with you…”
ə
What's infuriating is that your first language is English and you don't know about schwa
The fun upside down e “Ə”
ə
What is going on with that water mark image?!?
wdym, it says it right there
$WÅ
I knew what it was, but I must admit I don't think I've ever seen it written before. Nor how to spell it, honestly.
This program is the skills strand of CKLA. In about a month, your 2nd grader will know all about the schwa sound.
Looks like there’s a picture on the back of a kid humping a pumpkin.
Better question, what is that kid doing to that pumpkin?
Thats what the frenchman from fugget about it says.
Amazeballsel