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Fascinating video explains why 'R' is sometimes considered a vowel in the English language

"'R' is an incredibly weird letter with so many different sounds and functions."

Video explains why "R" is sometimes considered a vowel.

If you went to elementary school in the United States, then you learned that vowels are "A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y." All other letters of the alphabet are consonants and make a hard or soft sound depending on their placement around the vowel.

But apparently, our elementary school teachers may have missed a sometime-y vowel…and nobody puts "R" in the corner.

That was a terrible "Dirty Dancing" reference, but nonetheless, here we are looking at the English language with a collective "What the heck?" At no point in my native English-speaking life did I ever realize "R" could sometimes possess the characteristics of a vowel. But PBS said so, and they brought us "Sesame Street," so I'm inclined to believe them.

Erica Brozovsky, Ph.D. breaks down what makes a vowel and explores how the letter "R" in the English language fits that description in the PBS series "Otherwords."

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