I am somewhat confused about the proper British pronunciation of words like "ordinarily", "temporarily", and "momentarily". As I understand it, ... American pronunciation and stress the "a" in these words.

Native speakers of English don't, unless dictating to children. In ... or "handbag" (which in rapid speech is indistinguishable from "ham-bag"). I'm English and have just a vestige of a "d" in handsome and a

With the stress on the second vowel of 'romeo', as I was taught it. The words themselves are chosen to be readily distinguishable in poor hearing conditions, and the ordained stress patterns are designed to aid this distinction. If I'm

This debate really seems to be about two different things, spelling and pronunciation. The letter w (and y) is often used with other vowels (and sometimes alone as well) in spelling to reperesent a vowel sound . In the words hi and by , the letter

I'm afraid that in British English the rule *is* different. We do indeed tend to use hyphens after the prefix "non-" (which avoids the possibility of mispronouncing words such as "nonnative" ). As regards other prefixes,

I stumbled upon the latter use recently, and it got me thinking. There seems to be some exceptions to the simple rule that I still use when deciding on "a" or "an"... Don't make it too complicated! It goes almost entirely

Yes, but John Hall implied that he heard this in ... (using SAMPA notation) but I've never noticed this. (SAMPA: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/english.htm) SAMPA is itself quite confusing since it offers two different symbols (V and U)

The OP was referring to its pronunciation before a vowel sound. Oh. The entrance is on the second floor (the / thee) ? A Mexican might use "thee" but an Englishman never would. Mind you, a Yorkshireman might use "t" and someone

Hi, I need some advice regarding ESL instruction. I don't have any formal ESL training or certification, but I do tutor some foreign students in English - mainly written English. I've been approached by a Russian student who wants to

I must be slow this morning, but I got there in the end. You are not the only one, even I did not get it straight away. As John seems to have noticed, in day to day life I am John Lawler. But when I first started posting to this group and