blue artichoke

My public school education was thoroughly adequate. I learned to read, write and add on schedule. Some areas lacked (I'm still not quite sure what a quark is), and others excelled (I can churn out research papers with ease). One thing that has always puzzled me is vowels. I learned the vowels as a-e-i-o-u, sometimes y and sometimes w. This was in the second grade. My teacher couldn't give an example of when W acted as a vowel, but I accepted it and moved on to trickier topics. That was in North Carolina. When I moved to Tennessee, I was the only voice saying "...and sometimes W" when we recited the vowels. I didn't know any examples, so I learned to keep that one to myself after everyone I told about the elusive vowel laughed at me. Now, years later, I have come across a word where W is a vowel: cwm, a steep-walled semicircular basin in a mountain. I read it in Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. It's of Welsh origin, but uses the same alphabet, so I assume the same rules apply regarding vowels. Plus, it's in the dictionary. I feel vindicated. Take that, naysayers!

Dinner tonight: chicken pilaf, peas