Wyn Drabble: Is there an L-hole out there?

Wyn Drabble often talks to socks as he puts them in the laundry basket: "You realise one of you won't be coming back." Do they go to the same place as the L? Photo / NZME

It's usually cricket or rugby commentary that brings me to the missing-syllables issue, and this time is no exception. But on this occasion I'm adding another concern - the disappearance of the L sound.

Let's do the syllables first. There are extreme examples such as the four syllables of "Australia" being reduced to one ("Stry") or just the everyday examples such as the five syllables of "opportunity" becoming three in "obchoondee".

One of our TV weather presenters contributes to this malaise with his constant references to "the North Ine" and "the South Ine".

And so to the letter L. I know that omitting it is a part of our Kiwi accent, but I still want to know where the discarded Ls go. Not just the L from "vulnerable", which so commonly ends up as "vulnerable", but the L sounds that become Ws ("balcony" becomes "bowcony") or the ones that disappear altogether (as in "I will" becoming "O woow").

And back in the second paragraph I could have jumped in early and written "siboows" for "syllables", but I thought I needed to build up to it, give some background explanation first.

So, where do these syllables and Ls disappear to? Is there a black hole somewhere in the universe (an L-hole?) where they all exist?

Here I'm tempted to make a link with socks lost in the laundry. Often I will talk to socks as I put them in the laundry basket: "You realise one of you won't be coming back." US funny man Dave Barry had a (sort of) solution: "Both of your socks should always be the same colour. Or they should at least both be fairly dark."

And I have to make a link with airline luggage. Mark Russell famously said that, "the scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage."

Wyn Drabble

This raises the question, are there other yet-to-be-discovered planets with rings? Rings of socks? Rings of Kiwi Ls? Rings of syllables?

Unfortunately, my funds do not allow me to explore the solar system for new ringed planets, besides which it's hard to find a good space helmet in my size. So I'm just going to have to hypothesise.

You may be interested to know that In the US, lost/unclaimed baggage actually ends up going to a large retail outlet in Scottsboro, Alabama. Called the Unclaimed Baggage Centre, it is open during normal business hours.

You may feel this is not as interesting as the rings-of-Saturn idea, but I can perhaps increase your interest by telling you some of the goods that have ended up there: an $18000 Limoges vase (which sold for $80); a Versace gown; a full suit of armour; a shrunken head; a vacuum pack of 50 frogs. I am not making up the frogs.

A man once bought some ski boots there. They turned out to be the very ones his wife had lost a few years earlier.

So maybe I need to set up a retail outlet called Lost Socks. Most of the stock would be single odd socks, but if the numbers are big enough, I may be able to pair some up.

Setting up an L shop or a syllable shop is going to be a little trickier. I feel the interest or demand will just not be there. Besides which it would be difficult to source stock because, as I said at the beginning, I don't know where they disappear to so I don't know where to look.

After all, Ls and syllables are not the kind of thing you find down the back of the couch.