As per phonetics theory, I've been told one should use ... "an university" ? Are these instances of incorrect usage? Paul. A lot of people write 'an hotel', which always surprises me. Do they say it without the 'h'? I

Great, I was even called a dick. Thanks a lot. Don't take it too seriously. People in this newsgroup enjoy punning off each others messages. there's nothing personal in it. However at least one person noticed that I really use this tool to

Chambers Dictionary agrees with you, specifying that the pronunciation of "used", in *this context* is "yoost". I am therefore tempted to add the d if obliged ... grammatical grounds - it's like saying "When did you

I imagine that's also the reason why Americans usually mispronounce ... "Brisbane", They doubtless mispronounce the Australian city, but I suspect that Australians mispronounce the (much smaller) city of the same name in California,

The local pronunciation of Newcastle (upon Tyne) is, I believe, /nju'kas@l/, with second syllable stress and a "cat" vowel in the second syllable. In the rest of the country people tend to say /'njukas@l/ (north) or

Good summary of this, covering lots of languages and lots of animals, at: Sounds of the World's Animals http://www.georgetown.edu/cball/animals/ Alas, it does not say what sheep say in modern Greek, so I cannot check the astonishing statement

...for some value of "the literature." See http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001133.html#more, about halfway down in the discussion of the "Retart Zone". The entire article, both parts, is well worth reading.

I use to think the same thing. Apparently it's not true! used (common error, but still an error) Yes, it is an error, but unfortunately it's not as widely recognized to be an error as it should be. People like our own Professor Lawler

(To Aaron J. Dinkin) } By Jove, I think you're right! Well, or at least it's a proper subset of } that /&^/ class. That's weird, and calls to mind (FWIW) R.J. Valentine's } baffling perception of my (supposedly Jamaican)