What Is a Schwa?

The 1987 movie “The Princess Bride,” directed by Rob Reiner, is the source of more catch phrases and funny lines than almost any other movie I can think of, but one of the silliest comes from a scene on a boat. The swordsman Inigo Montoya and his hulking comrade Fezzik pass the time by playing a rhyming game. Montoya offers a line, such as, “That Vizzini, he can fuss.” He’s talking about their irritable boss named Vizzini. Fezzik responds with, “I think he like to scream at us.” Vizzini is annoyed at the game, and tells them to quit, but they continue. Montoya says, “Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?” Fezzik answers, “If there are, we all be dead.” As the camera pans away from the boat, we can hear Vizzini getting angrier, barking out, “No more rhymes now. I mean it!” A second later, Fezzik comes back with, “Anybody want a peanut?”

I still laugh at that line. It’s just such a non-sequitur, and what makes it even funnier is that Fezzik is rhyming “mean it” with “peanut.” It’s such an obvious cheat to make the rhyme work―after all, “mean it” doesn’t rhyme with “peanut.” Or does it?

Just by looking at the spelling, you wouldn’t think so. The last syllable of “mean it” is spelled I-T, but the last syllable of “peanut” is spelled N-U-T. But if you say “mean it” and “peanut” quickly enough, the rhyme works. How is that possible?

Meet the Schwa

The answer is: the schwa. “Schwa” is the name for the nondescript, middle-of-the-road vowel that almost any other English vowel can turn into. It’s the vowel spelled with an A in “agree,” and with E in “faded.” It’s the vowel spelled with I in “rapid,” and with O in “salmon.” It’s spelled with a U in “bonus,” with a Y in “vinyl,” and with various combinations of vowel symbols in words such as “nation,” “famous,” and “ocean.” You don’t spread your lips wide to make it, the way you do with the vowel sound in “tree.” You don’t round your lips to make it, as you do with the vowel sound in “shoe.” You don’t even have to open your mouth very wide to say it, unlike the vowel sound in “ball”―or ironically, the one in the word “schwa” itself.  Instead, you just relax your face muscles, let gravity pull your jaw down a little bit, and turn on your voice: “uh.” 

This totally relaxed way of making a schwa is related to one other important fact about it in English: The schwa only occurs in unstressed syllables. Did you notice that the schwa sound in all...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips