'Y' is a sly letter - abc - Wednesday, Round 6 - 'Y' / Alphabe-Thursday -'Y'

This is a glass-beaded Y-necklace made by the Swedish jewellery-artist, Yvonne Stark.

Today is Wednesday, July 7th and high time to link up with my two favourite alphabet-memes, Mrs. Denise Nesbitt's abc-Wednesday and Mrs. Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday. We have almost reached the end of our journey through the world of letters and words. This week's letter is 'Y', the next to the last letter of the English alphabet.

I have written a prose-poem about the letter 'Y', but since my blog is about jewellery-making, I would like to begin by showing the wonderfully detailed work of the Swedish jewellery-artist, Yvonne Stark. The only pictures on this post are Yvonne's 'Y'-shaped necklaces. (Take a look at her 'galleri'-page here.)

Here's a photo of Yvonne Stark
(and not Anna!):

Please visit Yvonne Stark's shop here.

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And now to my little prose-poem: 'Y is a sly letter'.

The English letter 'Y' is a sly letter.
It leads a double-life.

Sometimes 'Y' is a consonant, boldly taking the lead in words like
'yes', 'yacht' and 'yard'; and kicks up its heels 'yelling' 'yippie' at the front of words like
'youth', 'young', 'youngster', 'young thing' and even 'youngish'. 'Y' makes demands when it is the second person pronoun 'you', 'your', 'yours' and 'yourself'. It shows direction in an old-fashioned way with 'yonder' and 'yon'.
'Y' measures time in 'yet', 'year', 'yesterday' and 'yesteryear'.
And shows wistfulness in 'yearning'.
'Y' is a 'yapping' puppy that 'yelps' when someone steps on its tail.

But 'Y' is not content to be a consonant. 'Y' wants more. It wants also to be a vowel!
It trys to hide meekly in the middle of a word like 'hygiene', and lags behind at the end of words like 'why', 'lay' and 'may'.
Did you notice that it doesn't really have a vowel-sound all its own? Yes, 'Y' is a copy-cat, a cameleont-character who likes disguises. Sometimes 'Y' sounds like a long 'I' in 'rhyme', and 'thyme' or 'try' and 'fry'; sometimes like long 'E' as in 'funny' and 'bunny'. Other times 'Y' wants to play with other vowels like 'O' as in 'boy' or 'toy', or with 'A' in 'day' and 'say'.
Yes, 'Y' pretends to be shy, but leads a double-life and is very, very sly!

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Best wishes,

Anna

P.S. 'Yellow' is an excellent Y-word,
but I'll show my yellow items when Mrs. Matlock has her colours-weeks.

First Commenter:
Gayle of
Postmark California

For more Y-words at Mrs. Nesbitt's abcWednesday please click here.
For more Y-words at Mrs. Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday please click here.