Earlier quoted context omitted.
Y'all would probably enjoy Wikipedia's discussions of English phonotactics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics#English_phonotact... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Phonotactics /ʃm/ is not a legal onset in native English. (Let alone /tʃm/, which is how I pronounce "chmod" - two syllables, /tʃə 'mɔːd/.) "Schmear" is a Yiddish loanword coming from German, where /ʃm/ is perfectly legal. So it's p…
> (I'm not sure /tʃm/ is valid in any language - words or names that start with "chm" seem to be Polish/Russian words transliterating /xm/.) Oh it sure is in Croatian (and other Slavic languages), "tʃ" is written as "č". We even have slang words like "čmr-lji-ti" [t͡ʃmrʎiti]. "r" (rolling r) can function as a vowel.
The Dutch word “striktst” is of course also pronounced exactly how it's spelled, and in one syllable.