'quirk / quirky' GAE version

I winder if "quark" has shifted in pronunciation over the last few decades. When I went to school, quarks were pretty esoteric. When we studied quantum mechanics, we kept the the basics and never really got into particle theory (I think you need a lot of group theory to understand quarks and all that -- back a few decades ago, the college science courses always had to be dumbed down, because we were always lacking in math background work. Let's hope the kids of today have had differential equations, tensor analysis, and differential geometry in high school before they reach college, so they can start studying physics, mechanics, kinematics, etc., for real once they get there.)

Nowadays, I can imaging that young kids are a lot more advanced than we were. Maybe they are exposed to Quantum Mechanics and particle physics a lot earlier and a lot more? Maybe the word "quark" is heard a lot more now, and this popularity has caused it to shift to resemble "quart"?

<<Nowadays, I can imaging that young kids are a lot more advanced than we were. Maybe they are exposed to Quantum Mechanics and particle physics a lot earlier and a lot more? Maybe the word "quark" is heard a lot more now, and this popularity has caused it to shift to resemble "quart"? >>


Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Science classes have been dumbed down incredibly such that not only do you not study particle physics at school, but you barely touch on it in undergraduate degrees and have to wait for graduate school.



<<Let's hope the kids of today have had differential equations, tensor analysis, and differential geometry in high school before they reach college, so they can start studying physics, mechanics, kinematics, etc., for real once they get there.)>>

Lol! These days you don't even study tensor mechanics or differential geometry till grad school. As for differential equations, that's still well beyond high school pupils who nowadays can barely manage basic calculus, and rarely touch on linear algebra.

The problem with the pronunciation /ˈkwɑː(r)k/ for "quark" is that the sequence /wɑːr/ (or like) simply does not exist in most English dialects due to historical sound shifts; had such existed historically, it would have shifted to become the pronunciation /ˈkwɔː(r)k/ used in very many dialects today anyways. Consequently the pronunciation /ˈkwɔː(r)k/ would likely have come to be favored by many due to fitting the overall phonologies of most English dialects even without the influence of spelling pronunciation.