Schwa hits the Big Time!

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 12:33 PM, sagehen <sagehen at westelcom.com> wrote:
>
>  Schwa can be found peeking out from the gloom of arcana into the full glare
> of general culture (it says here) with this week's edition of /The Nation./
> It appears in Puzzle No.3128.  Frank Lewis gives it a *very* broad hint in
> the  clues.  I don't pay much attention to the NYT-type  puzzle any more,
> but I have, over the years, & I don't think I've ever run across "schwa" in
> any other puzzle.

Here's a list of 15 appearances of "schwa" in the NYT puzzle since
1994, with clues:

http://www.xwordinfo.com/Word.aspx?word=schwa

The geographical clues are interesting. I like "Sound in the middle of
Italy" and "Either end of Alaska" -- "'Long Island' sound" not so much
(which sound?).


--Ben Zimmer

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