[2012-May-08] Glottal Stops.

[Ncide]

im sorry smbc guy, but pretty much everything in this comic beyond panel 1 is wrong. pronouncing "mint condition" as "min' condition" doesnt cause a glottal stop. at all. a glottal stop uses the GLOTTIS. as in, the back of your throat. if you were using the back of your throat to truncate the "T" then in would sound like "ming condition".

glottal stops occur between two vowels. as in the cockney accent. never before a consonant.

I cant decide if this comic makes me more angry at you for getting it wrong, or embarrassed for you for spending so much time making a comic thats so blatantly wrong. its definitley a bit of both

[Seabasser]

im sorry smbc guy, but pretty much everything in this comic beyond panel 1 is wrong. pronouncing "mint condition" as "min' condition" doesnt cause a glottal stop. at all. a glottal stop uses the GLOTTIS. as in, the back of your throat. if you were using the back of your throat to truncate the "T" then in would sound like "ming condition".

glottal stops occur between two vowels. as in the cockney accent. never before a consonant.

I cant decide if this comic makes me more angry at you for getting it wrong, or embarrassed for you for spending so much time making a comic thats so blatantly wrong. its definitley a bit of both

Well, unreleased /t/ is at least glottalized in syllable final position, so he's close. It's not quite the same as a glottal stop, but can be perceived as one.

Better than it was this morning before he fixed it.

[DonRetrasado]

The other problem is with the whole definition of "glottal stop". A glottal stop can't be performed with the tongue, or else it wouldn't be glottal (that is, produced in the glottis or vocal tract). You're also making a glottal stop pretty much all the damn time. Every language uses the glottal stop or else your glottis would just keep vibrating for-fucking-ever. That's being a bit pedantic (I really only said it 'cause I thought it was funny) but truthfully a glottal stop consonant is just whenever you stop your glottis, and you're using it as a consonant. Which is extremely common, you use one at the end of every sentence.

I think when people say glottal stop, they usually mean, more specifically, a glottal plosive, i.e. a stop with a burst of air after the occlusion.

Well yeah, like I said, it's a pretty pedantic explanation, and exaggerated for effect. Glottal stop usually refers to a glottal stop consonant (which would need be a plosive). I'm not liking what I said about "one at the end of every sentence", so I'll scratch that and say something else; you'd use a glottal plosive at the beginning of every utterance which begins with a vowel, simply as a mechanical issue, unless you were panting heavily or something, I don't know. It has been a while since I've done this, so maybe I'm making a mistake here, but in any case I'm not familiar with a spoken language that does not use a glottal stop in some capacity.

I'm not exactly keen on the terminology we use for glottal sounds; certainly, saying "glottal stop" or "glottal plosive" is convenient, but to me it doesn't really capture how different glottal stops are from other plosives, which require another place of articulation. Well, that's just me. I definitely don't like "glottal fricative".

[Lethal Interjection]

I'm glad to see that this is already this long. And that some linguists are around.
Because then all I have to say is the the comic is wrong and shit.

[Sandwiches]

People really do seem to be forgetting that it's shit.

[DonRetrasado]

What's really bizarre, for me, is that linguists love shit like this. I've already seen a couple of facebook posts saying "yeah, the linguistics is wrong, but I LOVE this comic!" I think it's years of basically being ignored that cause us to get really excited whenever anyone remembers we exist. Most of the linguists I know actually really like SMBC. It's very mysterious.

[Sandwiches]

It's like xkcd with maths, my high school maths teacher every wednesday we start the lesson with that day's xkcd.

Hilarious.

[DonRetrasado]

So for the comic where that girl slits her wrists and that's the whole thing, I bet a lot of people were nonplussed about the whole situation that class.

[Sandwiches]

I apologise I think I misrepresented the situation, it was only the ones to do with maths.

We never got to enjoy 631 for example

[kevang]

What's really bizarre, for me, is that linguists love shit like this. I've already seen a couple of facebook posts saying "yeah, the linguistics is wrong, but I LOVE this comic!" I think it's years of basically being ignored that cause us to get really excited whenever anyone remembers we exist. Most of the linguists I know actually really like SMBC. It's very mysterious.

Not so mysterious given that today was SMBC's first linguistics blooper. Wasn't it?

[Sandwiches]

you have to admit though, that almost 1 in 5 SMBCs are not about linguistics

[kevang]

More like 999 out of 1000.

[Edminster]

What's really bizarre, for me, is that linguists love shit like this. I've already seen a couple of facebook posts saying "yeah, the linguistics is wrong, but I LOVE this comic!" I think it's years of basically being ignored that cause us to get really excited whenever anyone remembers we exist. Most of the linguists I know actually really like SMBC. It's very mysterious.

Not so mysterious given that today was SMBC's first linguistics blooper. Wasn't it?

No, it isn't. Zach's pretty routinely just wrong enough on a variety of subjects to call down a horde of pedantic fuckwits on a regular basis, and linguistics is no exception.

If he stopped making comics about science, maths, and philosophy I think the number of shitlords descending upon this forum with their raucous cries of yeRONG yeRONG would decrease a hundredfold.

[kevang]

linguistics is no exception.

Strange, I don't remember that. Where was he wrong about linguistics before?

[kelly]

Your examples are all voiceless alveolar stops.