strenff: lebron james demonstrates an easier way to say strength

in my experience, most english students of all levels are familiar with the adjective strong.  however, strength, the equivalent noun, is a word students frequently do not know. additionally, like this new video available on the recognizes, the -ngth ending makes strength a  (difficult) word to say. (lleva subtítulos en español )

in addition to tough, at 1:05 it’s explained that at the beginning of the video, the pronunciation of strength proved (resulted, turned out) to be a challenge (1:05) and is tricky (problematic, complicated).

listen at 1:15 for the line

let’s take a peek into the richyrocks archives

a peek is a little look. archives are historical documents, records.

  

joey peeking into monica and chandler’s apartment on friends.

the information at 1:48 is extremely useful when u are using richyrocks.com. control f, command f, find in page or their equivalents (depending on the operating system u are using) can help u find specific vocabulary on a richyrocks.com post; in this case, strenff.

control f is extremely useful for finding specific vocabulary expressions on richyrocks.com.

at 1:55, the preposition after is used. for this reason, the verb lose is in the -ing form:

after losing  the 2015 nba finals to the golden state warriors, a frustrated lebron james commented that his team, the cleveland cavaliers needed to be at full strenff, which they weren’t.

the rest of the video celebrates how much easier it is to say strenff rather than strength and lebron’s role in potentially making it a standard pronunciation.

a graphic for strenff.com

strenff.com is a fitness/bodybuilding website.

and it’s not just the word strenff.  there are examples of the  f sound replacing the th sound all over the internet.

ice cube is another celebrity who deserves (should get) recognition for advancing this phonetic option.

at :50 in this video of his well-known track check yo self he substitutes healff for health and stealff for stealth (the ability to go undetected). specifically…

I’m bad for your health
I come real stealth

the equally iconic gangsta, gangsta features ice cube with the group that made him famous, nwa. at :43 cube’s lyrics are

my man dre’ll fuck u up in a minute
with a right left, right left, u toothless
and then u say: “goddamn, they ruthless!”

ruthless (cruel, mean) is pronounced roofless and toothless (without teeth) is pronounced toofless. dre’ll is a contraction of dre (nwa and beats brand founder dr. dre) and will (future tense). fuck up means beat up, physically harm.

this youtube vid replaces birthday with birfday, and shows that some folks have issues with multiple pronunciations for words.

in diddy‘s song what u want (he was known as puff daddy on that album) he says earff instead of earth at 3;48 . the final two lines of the rap are

in a verse i show the whole earth my work
it got to get better because it can’t get no worse

this meme of a dog uses wif in place of with.

meme of dog pooping: can't poop wit u watching

and all-star victor oladipo of the indiana pacers said  bofe instead of both in his post game interview after winning game 1 of the pacers first round series in the 2018 nba playoffs, coincidentally with the cavaliers. at the end of this vid, he says

they gonna come out ready, on both ends of the floor, but so are we.

both ends of the floor means on offense and defense.

so if you’re struggling  (having trouble) with the pronunciation of the word strength, strenff is a friendly alternative. and if it works for u, like the video suggests, u may want to send a thank u to lebron via social media.


 

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