Clipping (phonetics)

Imagine that you have a long strip of paper that contains a drawing of a sound wave. This sound wave represents the sound that you make when you say a word. Now, let's say that the word that you are trying to say is "cupcake".

When you say the word "cupcake", your vocal cords vibrate and make the sound wave on the piece of paper. However, sometimes the sound wave can get too big for the piece of paper to handle. When this happens, the "extra" parts of the sound wave get cut off, or "clipped", by the paper.

In the world of phonetics, "clipping" refers to the process of cutting off parts of a sound wave when it gets too big for the system to handle. This can happen when we speak too loudly, or when the microphone or other recording device that we are using is not able to accurately capture the entire sound wave.

Clipping can cause the sound of the word to change, making it harder to understand. So, it's important to be aware of clipping when recording or speaking, and to try to avoid it as much as possible to ensure that the words we say are clear and easy to understand.