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by arghwhat 999 days ago
No it's not, it is an intentional misspelling of "googol" and means nothing - not in English or any other language. "Spotify" is also not a "normal word" in any language. And for those not native in English (there's supposedly only some 400 million of those), it's just a random sound sequence like any other.

mwmbl is a shortening of the welsh writing of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbles. Only tricky part is knowing that the w is pronounced as a u. Maybe it would be slightly easier if one followed the fad of leaving out vowels, but guessing a vowel and having a tricky vowel does not seem much different.
2 comments
marginalia_nu 999 days ago
> Only tricky part is knowing that the w is pronounced as a u

Is that really tricky? W is basically pronounced like U in English already[1]. It just looks funny when you exchange the two.

[1] e.g. say this sentence "uorld uar tuo uas the uorst"

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arghwhat 999 days ago
In many other languages, w is pronounced like a v and in some cases even named "double vee".

> e.g. say this sentence "uorld uar tuo uas the uorst"

This doesn't work with the English pronunciations of the letter u from words like "uninteresting" or "mumble". It mostly seems to work with the pronunciation of "you", which does not naturally fit those letter placements.

Not knowing the proper linguistic terms, I'd consider "w" to be a modulation of a another sounding vowel by closing your lips and pressing your tongue a bit down to make room. Without a vowel to modulate, there is no sound, and so "mwmbl" is a bit of a question mark.

But most words require prior knowledge to pronounce correctly, especially in as messy a language as English.

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brettermeier 999 days ago
Oh thanks for clarification.
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