Worthless Word for the Day

[teapeebubbles]

the worthless word for the day is: epenthesis

[fr. Gk epentithenai, to insert a letter]
/e PEN(t) thuh sis/
the insertion (or development) of a sound or
letter within a word

epenthesize, to so insert

epenthesis describes the extraneous vowel sounds
you hear in (and the misspelling of) words such as
athlete, film, nuclear, realtor, Lithuania and
Tijuana(!) -- this purportedly stems from a need
to make things easier to pronounce!

in Phonetics, the special case of the development
of a vowel between two consonants is also called
anaptyxis [Gk, unfolding]