i've got one.....compliments of The Straight Dope
Quote:
Dear Cecil:
In elementary school I remember the teacher telling me that the vowels were AEIOU and sometimes Y and W. But I can't think of a single word where W is used as a vowel. Are there any? --Michael S., Baltimore
Dear Michael:
Sure. Try "how," which is phonetically equivalent to "hou," as in house. Ou and ow are diphthongs--that is, two vowel sounds that kind of slide together when you say them. W and Y are often called semivowels because they go both ways, as it were, depending on the company they keep within the word. (Low morals are obviously a problem at every level of our society.) In cow, for instance, W is a vowel, but make the word coward and you can hear W working as a consonant. Similarly with Y become I in copy and copier. I could also expound on the vowel-likes, yet another class of letters with an identity crisis, but I think we've had enough angst for one column already.
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BTW, this website answers all sorts of questions.....many of which i've wondered but had no idea how to answer. you could spend days there just reading cool shit.
www.straightdope.com