"long" and "short" vowels

[M Covarrubias]

On Jun 14, 2009, at 11:26 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:

> My point still is "Do US English teachers and reading teachers
> describe long/short vowels as Wells does, or as I learned them a
> half century ago?

you'd have to ask every english teacher. my teachers used 'long' to
indicate diphthongs. when i taught, i used 'long' to describe
duration. there is no ministry of terminology issuing orders to
elementary and secondary teachers. but my guess is that many teachers
still use 'long' and 'short' as your teachers did, simply because the
distinction in duration doesn't come up in elementary and secondary
classrooms that often.

michael

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