The other day Coco was looking at a cross word which contained at least two quite interesting words. The first letter of snow leopard was the third letter of a sailing vessel. Now Coco does not often have occasion to use the word sloop, but it set him thinking about related words. Slope is one. Have you ever wondered why English spellings appear to be so difficult. If however you listen carefully then you may notice some subtle distinctions which account for the differences in spelling which we often find.

Sloop and slope have very pure vowel sounds. There is a very clear oo, a long o (Coco shall not go into the phonetics of this, but shall leave it to those who are far better qualified than he in those matters) and there is a short o. But what happens when you take the L away? We have two collections of letters which do not form proper English words at all: soop and sope. However, did you also notice that when you tried to say these two words you told yourself that the spelling was incorrect. The words make sense but only when spelt differently: soap and soup. Did you also notice a slight change in the pronunciation? Try it again.

With the one there is the impression in the short o of the sound of water sloshing around, which is quite appropriate given the purpose of the substance, so you have the very slight diphthong o-a: so-ap. In the second, and this perhaps reflects what we have lost but is still apparent in the social etiquettes of some societies, for example in Japan, the inevitable manner in which a so-up must be eaten or perhaps more properly be sucked up into the prandial orifice. Again there is a soft diphthong present, though not as soft as the o-a of soap, oo-u and so we say soo-up.

Now Coco is not saying that the diphthongs are strong, though perhaps in some English (the language he hastens to add not the country) dialects they may be stronger than in others, so perhaps in Brummie, Glaswegian or Liverpudlian some of these diphthongs will be more pronounced than elsewhere. Coco hesitates to mention Geordie as they are either unlikely to have a need of the one, would never dream of swallowing the other or have their own completely different words unknown south of Jarrow or north of Gosforth for the two.

Coco mentioned that there was an interesting association with the letter L, which with a little thought you will find elsewhere. The presence of L produces a pure vowel sound, If you misspell sloup and sloap you will hear it. The slight diphthongs disappear. Perhaps this is to do with the placement of the tongue, as you will recognise in words such as pool and tool. Indeed if you work though the alphabet, ignoring the vowels of course, you will quickly understand this. These words have very a very pure long o:

Boule – this is of course the French spelling of the word as it is imported. The French do not have the same orthography as the English. The correct English spelling is bool.

Cool

Drool – Coco has to introduce the r as we have no word dool.

The next word requires no introduction as it is wonderful, a cool and drool description of anyone who has managed to read thus far and not remember that it is now April:
Fool.