A permissible combination of distinctive sounds or phonemes in a given language.
Example | Illustration:
‘Sl-’ (as in the Slurpee slushy soft drink brand) fits the English sound pattern and is therefore considered not difficult for an English speaker to pronounce.
‘Sb-’ (as in the Sbarro Italian restaurant brand) does not fit the English sound pattern and is therefore considered by English speakers to be foreign and/or difficult to pronounce.
A figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two unlike objects via a construction such as like, as, than, similar to, resembles, etc.
Example | Illustration:
The former Chevy slogan ‘Like A Rock’ is a simile for ‘tough’.
The semantic kernel from which a set of words is derived by phonetic, morphemic, and/or semantic change.
Example | Illustration:
The shared semantic kernel of the words ‘black’, ‘blue’, ‘blond’, and ‘blush’ is the Indo-European root *bhel-, which originally referred (several thousand years ago) to the colors seen in a fire.