"Thrive" seems like a bad match of a word for the concept it embodies, phonologically speaking.

[rygorous@mastodon.gamedev.place]

"Thrive" seems like a bad match of a word for the concept it embodies, phonologically speaking.

"I'm thriving" is not the kind of mouth sounds you should be making if everything's great. "I'm thriving" is giving "I'm barely avoiding spitting in my conversation partner's face while holding my guts in"

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@rygorous now i want to hear how you say it

[wolf480pl@mstdn.io]

@rygorous
don't half of the words of Norse origin sound like that?

[wolf480pl@mstdn.io]

@rygorous
I wonder if there's a flowery word of French/Latin origin that means something like "barely surviving"

[svat@mathstodon.xyz]

@rygorous Also “I'm thriving” is phonologically too close to "I'm striving", which can, in some contexts, mean the opposite. And more closely, “thrive” and “thrift” have kind of opposite connotations (but again: “spendthrift”). Poor word all around.

[rygorous@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@aeva the specific aspect I'm thinking about is that for "thrive", you start with the tongue in a "lisping" position, then for the "ai" sound you pull it back quite violently and then go into the voiced labiodental fricative to propel the spit you just scraped off your tongue with your teeth forward