The not-so-subtle schwa

I don't know about you, but I was not familiar with the term "schwa". That is, not until I was asked to identify the schwas in a sentence, and had to look up what it meant! I was surprised to find that the "schwa" is a linguist's term for the most common sound in English speech!

"The sound is that slight 'uh' that so often serves as the vowel in an unstressed syllable. It is the sound of a in 'alone,' e in 'system,' i in 'easily,' o in 'gallop,' and u in 'circus.'"

For a complete explanation, see this article from the Random House website.