| OK, so, coming in a little late, but I'd like to point out that JayHankEdLyon is right...up to a point. The problem is that there are two similar but notably distinct concepts of "vowel", one of them having to do with pronunciation, the other having to do with spelling. There's no doubt that "Kentucky" and "New Jersey" end with a vowel *sound*, but "Utah" also ends with a vowel sound, and no one was arguing that it should be taken off the quiz or claiming that H is a vowel in this case. The fact is that English has something like 15 to 20 vowels in its pronunciation (depending on your dialect); and independent of that fact, it has 5 or 6 vowels in its spelling system (depending on how you're counting "Y"). When JHEL refers to "Y in the coda position", he's actually saying something that makes no technical sense, because "coda position" is an element of pronunciation and "Y" is an element of the spelling. As for what the quiz should or shouldn't include: in common English usage, "vowel sound" is used for pronunciation, "vowel" is used for spelling (e.g., there are two *vowels* in the word "team", but one vowel *sound*), and whenever you're talking about what vowels a word does or doesn't have, you pretty much need to explicitly specify whether or not you're including Y. To my mind, making "New Jersey" and "Kentucky" bonus answers is the most sensible compromise. |
Vowel States
Vowel/Consonant States
US States By Vowels
