mikejedw21 May 2002

"Inhaled," to my ear, is two syllables, but you do raise an interesting point. I've long wondered whether "fire" is properly one or two syllables--the triphthong of "ire" makes for a very long vowel sound (long in the classical prosody sense) and can, in some dialects, sound much better broken in two. In fact, in the Carolinas, many "r" triphthongs, such as "there," come across as two syllables--"they-air." I make use of this ambiguity with "fire" in my haiku, "Fireflies."