Generally unsung and unremarked on, the schwa is misnamed, in my opinion. Although the word is fun to say, a more appropriate label would be “the uh.”

For those of you who don’t remember third grade or grew up in an era when they didn’t teach such things, the schwa is the weak “uh” vowel sound in unstressed syllables, like “uh” working for the “a” in “about” but also working for the “e” in “given.”

You might know it better by its upside-down-e symbol:  ə.

Apparently this little worker bee got its own day in 2023, when schwa champion Yvette Manns, author of The Not-So-Lazy Schwa, pushed for it. She chose the date Apruhl Sevuhnth because of the schwa present in the second syllables of both words.

I worked for about five minutes trying to construct a sentence in which each word had a schwa. I failed. You try!