Search results for 'tag:Vowels tag:Pronunciation tag:Spelling' matching tags 'Vowels', 'Pronunciation', and 'Spelling'

Re: WAAS .. tricky acronym

gleb_chebrikoff — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:36:11 GMT

Hello, Vladimir, this combination has not yet been codified in major pronunciation dictionaries, perhaps due to the narrowness of its use outside technical areas; therefore, we should resort to analogy. Thus, acronyms of a similar type (featuring consonant + vowel + vowel + consonant ), including WAAC and WAAF, are pronounced as follows: WAAC ( Women's Army Auxiliary Corps) - WAAF ( Women's Auxiliary Air Force) - , from which it stems that a possible pronunciation of the combination in question is , although it is still unclear whether this term has transcended the boundaries of a mere abbreviation and become a real acronym. Respectfully, Gleb Chebrikoff

Re: S or es in simple present

philip — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:20:44 GMT

For the third person singular, use s . It's pronunciation will depend on what comes before it: voiced consonant or vowel /z/; unvoiced consonant /s/. animals, cows; pets For a word ending in /s/ or /z/ sound , use es (unless the spelling of the word ends in e : then just s . This gives a schwa sound +/z/. basses ; (phases) Sounds difficult? Not really. The spelling is simply a reflection of the natural pronunciation. Welcome to the forums, Mo.

Re: "a hydrodynamic" vs "an hydrodynamic"

anonymous — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:48:16 GMT

Using “a” and “an” Before Words Raphael asks: When should I use “a” and when should I use “an” before the different words? For example, should I say “a hour” or “an hour?” I stumble over this everytime and dont’t know if I’m getting it right, as I’m not speaking and writing English natively. The Rule The rule states that “a” should be used before words that begin with consonants (e.g., b, c ,d) while “an” should be used before words that begin with vowels (e.g., a,e,i). Notice, however, that the usage is determined by the pronunciation and not by the spelling, as many people wrongly assume. You should say, therefore, “an hour” (because hour begins with a vowel sound) and “a history” (because history begins with a consonant...

Re: "a" or "an" in front of acronym (LIP) Low Inflow Protocol

yankee — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:59:36 GMT

If the pronunciation of "LIP" is " e l-eye-pee", then you should use "an". The rule for using "an" is not based on spelling. It is based on pronunciation. If the initial sound is a vowel sound, then you use "an", not "a".

Re: Acronyms and the use of 'a' vs. 'an'

anonymous — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:28:37 GMT

No man its only 'taken for a vowel' when it starts with a vowel in pronunciation (when read abc-style). So 'p' is pronounced as 'pee' (consonant), 's' is 'ess' (vowel), 'k' is 'kay' and 't' is 'tee' (consonants). Just read the abbreviation as you would read it aloud.

Re: Double consonants f, l, k, s, z in verb's infinitive

alpheccastars — Sat, 16 May 2009 02:09:19 GMT

It is just convention. English spelling is not 100% consistent or regular. There have been many attempts at spelling reform, but none so far has gained any traction. There is no "academy" for English, as there can be for other languages. The convention may be based on the origins of the words in Latin, Greek, Germanic, or others such as Old French. That being said, though, I tried to generalize a phonetic rule that fits. S and Z are voiced/unvoiced equivalents, and L, F, S, Z are all continuants. M, N are continuants, but they are also nasals. ck cannot be considered a doubling, it is a digraph, an alternate spelling of the K sound. There are no verbs (at least common ones) ending in J or V. When a verb ends in W, I...

Re: Try Saying the Alphabet...

charles a lieberman — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:07:26 GMT

Peter Groves Sun, 09 Nov 2008 02:44:19 GMT > Daniel Jones' EPD, which describes a pre-war kind of RP, gives the pronunciations /f(OR)lk@n/ (I'm using (OR) for the vowel of "fall") and /fOLlk@n/ (as in "folly") and notes that /f(OR)k@n/ (without the /l/) "is the usual pronunciation among those who practise the sport of falconry". What's the archipelago near the Argentinean coast (if it isn't /ma:lvIna:s/)? I read of falcons before I saw them, so I go by the spelling pronunciation /f&lk@n/. I say John Woods's character's name from "WarGames" the same way. Charles A. Lieberman > "The explanation is extremely simple. Brooklyn, New York, USA > It doesn't...

Re: Try Saying the Alphabet...

peter groves — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 02:44:19 GMT

Peter Groves filted: I was with you (more or less) ... the birds themselves are in plentiful supply around these parts.. Quite apart from the birds, Ford have had a Falcon model around for years. In my part of Australia, it ... occasions I hear the "fall" vowel, I assume the speaker is a recent immigrant from the UK. Rob Bannister It's the same in my part (Melbourne). But the car appeared after the spelling pronunciation became established, I assume. Daniel Jones' EPD, which describes a pre-war kind of RP, gives the pronunciations /f(OR)lk@n/ (I'm using (OR) for the vowel of "fall") and /fOLlk@n/ (as in "folly") and notes that /f(OR)k@n/ (without the /l/) "is the usual pronunciation among...

Re: Try Saying the Alphabet...

peter groves — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:23:04 GMT

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 subdued but audible one in sandwich, but a full one in handbag (hand-bag). If you utter a fully released /d/ in "handbag" (hand-bag) you're using a spelling pronunciation, which is normally a result of the word in question going out of daily use. I'm English too, but I live in Australia and while my students don't say "cup-board" because they use the word on a daily basis, they do say "waist-coat", "boat-swain", "grind-stone" and...

Re: WHEN IS "w" A VOWEL

missmandy — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:02:28 GMT

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 and the letter y are representing the same sound. To add to the confusion, English has many diphthongs, or two-sound vowels. Two-sound vowels often begin or end in a sound very similar to a w sound or y sound. The easiest to here are oy (boy) and ow (cow), which can also be spelled oi (coin) and ou (house). So, it is very clear, that in spelling , w and y are like vowels. Our educators have found it much easier to just tell our kids that those letters are vowels because they are so often part...

Re: Consonant cluster reduction

anonymous — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:54:33 GMT

Hi. On TV you may not hear the sounds, the tongue-play within the chamber of the mouth and the tiny air stops, etcetera that occur when people speak. You need to be face-to-face with your pronunciation coach. I can well see how you "hear" FAX for facts, because the sounds are about identical in those two words. You know from the context when someone tells you to send them a FAX that they are not talking about the "facts." That is the context or the syntax of the language. GIFTS is spelled that way, but, actually when you pronounce it, you DO HEAR "GIFS." The ortography of words is a clue to their meaning, so the spelling is important when you are reading. ASKED. Pronounce ASK. Feel and hear the little...

Re: fair-haired

pter — Mon, 19 May 2008 10:02:06 GMT

Yes, there are regional variations in American English. Do you know which accent is chosen by MW as the reference in the pronunciation keys. Is it General American? My problem is that, as I have mentioned before, they are indeed denoted differently in British English. The first one is a simple vowel while the second one is a diphthong / e /. The question is whether the diphthong / e / ONLY occurs before an R. If it occurs before some other consonants, such as D, L, T, N ( / -e t /, / -e l /, / -e d /, / -e n / ), using / er / to indicate a different sound from / e / is not a good idea because you'll have problems showing the differences between / -e

Re: Say and says

pter — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:40:54 GMT

CalifJim wrote: I thought you were only looking for irregular verb forms. I am indeed looking for something like irregular verb forms. The comparison with bays, days, etc. is just a remark. But what is intriguing is that says is not an irregular verb. It is formed by just adding an s . It's just a "normal" third person singular verb. That's why I find it strange and exceptional. As a comparison, go and went sound completely different and the spelling are completely different. Could it be possible that says was not spelt this way in the past? It would also be interesting if we can find a "normal" plural form that sounds completely differently from the singular form. CalifJim wrote: again and against also have ai as a lax e...

Re: How can I learn to talk with a British accent?

anonymous — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 08:39:02 GMT

To all of you who want a British accent: Although I've mentioned on this website that I've made a website of poems, with my clear English voice recording attached to them, and although since last year almost 24000 people have visited it from across the world, I have never heard from anyone in English Forums that they have found it useful. Poems are fun, the language is varied, they are short enough to do one poem, listening to the words, checking meanings, noting spellings, reading it through copying my voice etc in only half an hour thoroughly. A good idea then is to learn them and recite them. Our children in Britain learn our language through poetry. My three year old daughter, Jessica, knows lots of rhymes. They are fun. When you...

Re: Which language is most difficult language for people to learn?

hoa thai — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:43:06 GMT

CalifJim wrote: I read somewhere that Mario Pei, the linguist, tried to learn a different language every year. He supposedly claimed that Vietnamese was the most difficult. CJ I disagree with the linguist Mario Pei not because I am a Vietnamese. It is because I have seen, in my country, a couple of TV hosts and many shop owners speak our language fluently and write better than most of our people do. Amazingly, all of them have lived in Vietnam for only a few years. For instance, Joe Ruelle, who has been in Vietnam for only 3 years or so, has his own blog written in perfect Vietnamese and speaks the language without a foreign trace. People say that Joe is a Vietnamese who had plastic surgery in order to...

Re: How can I learn to talk with a British accent?

brunate — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 10:32:04 GMT

I have mentioned this before on this website, but I hope it will help you. I am poet who has made available freely about 240 of my own poems on the internet, but I have also added my clear English voice to each poem to help both overseas students studying the English language and especially children of our own country who are struggling with reading. When you read words like: cough; through; though; bough and dough - you may not realize that they all have completely different vowel sounds, so listening and reading at the same time is an excellent way of improving both your pronunciation and spelling. Even the English realize that our language is difficult to others. I have been a teacher all my life, and for many years I have taught ESL...

Re: 'what' as 'hawt' & 'r' as 'rr' in Spanish Thanks

marvin a. — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 16:06:18 GMT

Hwat for what is the original pronunciation and was the only form used in Middle English. In Modern English, many dialects lost the wine-whine distinction, and began pronouncing words spelled "wh" as simply "w", rather thn "hw". The original, conservative form is still around, and is considered standard in certain areas. In North America, many Southern accents preserve it. Elsewhere in N. America, it has almost completely died out, except in older speakers. However... people often hear others using it, and hear that it sounds old-fashioned and a little bit more correct, and thus add it to their own speech. I remember myself adding it to my speech for awhile. However, I've given up the habit. My grandpa has it, but I can tell that he must...

Re: On "data" pronunciation

anonymous — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 07:55:44 GMT

I don't think there is a hard and fast rule here. However: If you have a two syllable word that ends with an 'a', it's typical that the vowel in the first is short. Like 'dada', 'feta', etc. This is not a rule so much as a pattern that should be observed. Following it, the 'da' in 'data' should not be pronounced like 'day'. Nevertheless, pronunciation and spelling in English are complicated by a number of things: most commonly from words that come from other languages. 'Datum' and 'data' belong to that category. As for the who/whom question, since when is this controversial? Whom is an object pronoun like 'her', 'him', 'them' etc. (a) I went to the movies with Sarah. (b) You went with WHOM? It's out of popular use, but I...

Re: Have a question about British accent.

anonymous — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 22:50:20 GMT

Xam0 wrote: There is definately an upstate NY accent. The vowels in the middle of some words are either changed or pronounced as dipthongs. Ill put the normal spelling of some words followed by the upstate NY pronunciation.. and then the north jersey pronunciation (where im from) which is fairly neutral compared to upstate ny. Dog -- dwog -- dog Frog -- frohg --frog Cat -- keeyat -- kat Mat -- meeyat -- mat Walk -- wooawk -- wahk Map -- meeyap -- map Hat -- heeyat -- hat Creek -- crick -- kreek Water -- wuohdr -- wahdr Ball -- bowul -- bahl Fall -- fowul -- fahl Hair -- hayer -- hare Fair -- fayer -- fare Have -- hyav -- hav Has -- hyaz -- haz Also, upstate NY, like NJ does not make a distinction in pronunciation between "Mary,...

Re: write and written

califjim — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 07:10:36 GMT

It seems to me that you are wrestling with the "Second-Letter Rule", which says that a single vowel letter (i.e., not combined with another vowel letter in a digraph) is pronounced tense if the second letter after it is another vowel letter, lax otherwise. ( lady, caddie, hope, hop, hoping, hopping, June, junk, bite, bit, bitty, bitten, ... ) Unfortunately, this rule has only limited application, typically in one-syllable words and in final stressed syllables of polysyllabic words. And the rule never works when v is involved because v is virtually never doubled. ( *livved ! *givven ! *devvil !) Several other cases also conspire to make the rule less than universal. The Second-Letter Rule works for write and written , but not...

Re: write and written

marvin a. — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 04:22:41 GMT

I want to explain to my students the reasons behind the difference in pronouncing 'write' and 'written' is that 'written' has double Ts. How can I tell them about this? Whether it's written with 2 t's or 3 t's or no t's has absolutely nothing to do with why it's pronounced like that. And to properly explain the reason for that you'd have to go all the way back to Old English. As usual, there are no real rules for pronouncing English based on the orthography, but in general a vowel followed by a double consonant tends to be lax. Second question: I want to tell students the correct of pronunciation of 'Donald'. It should not be pronounced as 'Do-nald'. It should be spoken as 'Don-nald' because 'n' is shared by the two vowels 'o' and...

Re: What makes English so difficult to learn?

anonymous — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:23:38 GMT

Hmmm. If you think that english is difficult - YOU ARE WRONG!!! It is the easiest language! I'm Pole, have you ever tried to say the simplest word in Polish e.g łazienka (bathroom) I'm sure that 90% of English wouldn't be able to pronounce it correctly!!! Or meaby something from German: einhundertfunfundzwazig (125) - this is correct spelling, there shouldn't be any spaces!!! It is normall that you are not as fluent as natives - it is impossible, there are always differences in pronunciation or in degree of complexity of vocabulary. Only thing which can cause real problems are pronunciation such vowels as 'th' (thing, those). These "dentals" don't occur in other european languages at all. The other things are tenses - twelve of them -...

Re: non-native accents

marvin a. — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 03:40:21 GMT

This is really badly off topic but I couldn't resist the temptation to comment on your correct observation. I understand very well that native speakers of English mispronounce foreign words because foreign languages are not studied much in English-speaking countries. Well, can you really blame us? In order to pronounce all of the foreign names we're faced with, we would have to know hundreds of different languages--which not many of us do. Also, we would have to know how certain names are Anglicized that were written in different scripts, such as Cyrillic or Greek. We'd also have to know the nationality of the name as well. Also some spellings are altered when written in English. We'd also have to adapt the name to fit English rules,...

Re: pronunciation

marvin a. — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 16:15:54 GMT

I also pronounce "young" and "love" with the same vowel. The reason that "love" has an "o" in Modern and Middle English is because: "The pronunciation of written o in son, love, come, etc. is due to Norman spelling conventions prohibiting writing of u before v, m, n due to the graphical confusion that would result. (v, u, n were identically written with two minims in Norman handwriting; w was written as two u letters; m was written with three minims, hence mm looked like vun, nvu, uvu, etc.)" http://www.bibliodata.com/article/orthography.htm

Re: pronunciation of 'pronunciation'

marvin a. — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 16:34:47 GMT

>> Native speakers can make mistakes with pronounciation. Unfortunately with English, the spelling does not always give you a clue to the pronounciation, so if people learn a word from seeing it written, they can make mistakes. << Native speakers can of course occasionally make a performance error, but it's ridiculous to say that they can pronounce a word incorrectly--as who decides on how a word is "supposed" to be pronounced? There are simply different ways of pronouncing words. For example, unlike some people I pronounce "get" as , and I use the same vowel sound for the words "bag", "beg", "vague", and "play". I also use the same vowel in "father", "bother", "cot" and "caught". Are those "incorrect" pronunciations? No,...

Re: which accent?

marvin a. — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 17:52:06 GMT

To tell you the truth, I've never heard any foreigner (unless they learned English when they were very young, or had lived in an English speaking country for at least a decade, and had extensive, and personalized accent coaching) ever be able to pull off either an American or British accent. "British English" and "American English" consist of 3 parts--accent, spelling, and lexicon. As for accent: when people learn an American accent, they learn what is known as "General American"--an accent based on a generalized Midwestern accent, spoken in the 1950's Narrowly definied, this accent is only spoken by very old speakers (80 year olds) in the Midwestern and Western portions of the US, and in a couple of 90 year olds in Canada. Broadly...

Re: What is the most obstacle to your spoken english?

califjim — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 20:13:52 GMT

Pronunciation is very important, but with English that means stress patterns. Getting the stress patterns right for a whole phrase is often more important than getting every single word exactly right. The vowels can be off a bit, but the stress pattern and the consonants should be as accurate as you can make them. And be aware that spelling does not always indicate pronunciation very well in English! You may have to force yourself to overcome the habit of reading English with the same correspondences to sounds that you find in your own language. Next is words, words, words. You cannot speak without words! Learn as many words as you can. Learn frequently used phrases as units. Practice saying phrases with the...

Re: Change English As You Wish --- simplifyed spelling experiment

j lewis — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:02:54 GMT

A late contribution on spelling and pronunciation. I would willingly abolish some of the more absurd spellings. Think of the AmE spelling jail , which many of us Brits find far preferable to the old BrE gaol (!!!). The problem arises, however, with deciding what pronunciation is standard. In BrE, the words court and caught have similar vowel sounds, while in AmE they are very different. Then take the letter A , which causes no end of problems. In northern England the words back , bath and barn have the same vowel-sound, corresponding to the A as pronounced in French, German or Italian, for example. In south-eastern England, bath and barn have the long, rounded A , while the short A in back goes towards an E. This differentiation is...

Re: Vowels in the unstressed syllables

thethenothere123 — Sat, 13 May 2006 02:08:13 GMT

I don't know of any rules that dictate the pronunciation in that regard. I tend to believe that every language has some element that is particularly difficult to learn and with English, it's the pronunciation and spelling. Seriously, for what other language do national spelling competitions exist?

Re: How can I learn to talk with a British accent?

forbes — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 14:01:28 GMT

' Ow, eez ye-ooa san,is e?' 'Oh, he's your son is he?' The Shavian spelling rather over-emphasises the Cockney pronunciation, although some linguists maintain that there are only dipthongs and no "pure" vowels in Cockney. To some ears Cokney pronounced words can seem to have extra syllables, so that the Cockney pronounciation of Cockney can sound like Cockerney. Dick van *** famously got it all a bit wrong in Mary Poppins.

Re: Are grammar rules helpful to non-native speakers

anonymous — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 07:31:36 GMT

Rules help a long as they are predominantly consistent. When a rule is significantly inconsistent then it will lead to confusion. For example, what rule can be applied to the double "o" sound in English? The words: food, blood, took, foot, moon, stool, and many other double "o" words are pronounced differently. Another example: "cut, put, pull, pun, prune. How are we to offer rules on the pronunciation of vowels that don't keep still? Then we have double consonants mimicking letters. For example: phone, fun, fine, pharmacy, Philadelphia, finicky, phantasm. Or the silent letters such as the "p" in, Psyche, the "l" in should, would, and in salmon, or the "gh" in night, sight, plight, might, height, right, light. Because of this,...

Re: Origin & earliest usage of "Plonker" (eg. "Rodney you Plonker")

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 21:37:16 GMT

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 sci.lang, I discovered that there was another John Lawler already here. After some experimentation, I settled on the Irish form of my name as a nom-de-clavier. It would be equally applicable to the other John but I got it first. I was actually born in London but my parents were both born in Ireland. Explaining the pronunciation of my surname would take quite a while. If you are interested, scan this group and sci.lang for it. One or the other contains an explanation with contributions from people whose...

Re: Woman and wolf pronounciation

califjim — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 05:52:07 GMT

It may be a characteristic of a particular group of people, or it may be an idiosyncracy of individual speakers. Other than the fact that "w" quite often influences the sounds of vowels (especially "a" and "o") which may follow it, there is no explanation from any phonetic principles I know of why a person or group uses that non-standard pronunciation. More likely the reasons are sociological. Other members of the forum may have more information on this. CJ By the way, I think you might have got your point across better with the spelling "woam-an". (And "love" has a different vowel sound from that in "home". You seem to be implying the vowels are the same in those two words in a previous post.)

Re: Run + ning is related to pronunciation? Thanks !

abbie1948 — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 09:38:03 GMT

Hi Xcats, This is related to the spelling of the past tense forms of regular verbs; it also applies to the "ing" form. spelling of regular affirmative past tense forms Most regular verbs: add -ed work —worked help —helped start — started rain —rained stay —stayed show — showed wonder —wondered visit — visited gallop—galloped Verbs endingin -e: add -d hope —hoped decide —decided Verbs ending in one stressed vowel +one consonant (except wory): double the consonant and add -ed shop — shopped plan — planned refer —referred regret — regretted Verbs ending in consonant + -y: hurry— hurried change y to i and add-ed cry—cried study—studied Verbs ending in-c have ck in the past (e.g....

Re: Shakespeare's pronunciation

matthew huntbach — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:08:06 GMT

Indeed. When English was first written, it was spelt phonetically. ... English represents how English was spoken in the 16th century. It's more complicated than that. Spelling standardised (thanks to printing) shortly *after* Shakespeare's works were published (say about the middle ... Middle English, which was *before* the Great Vowel Shift. The pronunciation of some words has changed to match the spelling... If the spelling of Shakespeare's day represented Middle English, then it had already standardised. Not completely, perhaps, but enough so that there was no longer a completely phonetical representation. Matthew Huntbach

Re: Shakespeare's pronunciation

john briggs — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 13:29:57 GMT

I've never heard Shakespeare being performed with original pronunciation, so ... and spelling was much closer then than it is now. Indeed. When English was first written, it was spelt phonetically. However, by Shakepeare's time "correct" spellings were just getting established. So the spelling used in English represents how English was spoken in the 16th century. It's more complicated than that. Spelling standardised (thanks to printing) shortly *after* Shakespeare's works were published (say about the middle of the seventeenth century). Most vowel sounds have changed again since Shakespeare's day, but the spelling of Shakespeare's day reflected that of Middle English, which was *before* the Great Vowel...

Re: Who'd heed 'hood HUD head had hoed, hawed, & hid his hod?

robert lieblich — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 02:50:48 GMT

Assuming you want every vowel sound including diphthongs, you're missing ... actor, best known for role in "Hill Street Blues") Is "haid" a verb too? I know of "hayed". "Haid" is either a proper name or a phonetic rendering of some dialectical pronunciations of "head." The OP asked about verbs, but he used some nouns and some contractions (or whatever you call "'hood") as well, so it seemed (litotes alert) not unreasonable to offer him any qualifying word with a vowel sound he had omitted. I certainly don't object to substituing "hayed" for "haid," even if it does make more sense. Bob Lieblich Trying to make more cents

Re: Place name pronunciations

athel cornish-bowden — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 09:44:10 GMT

"er" as the I think Athel was talking about a schwa, /@/, as in a common BrE pronunciation of "Ibiza" as /aI'bi:T@/. A non-rhotic British "pronunciation spelling" of that might be "eye-BEETH-er", with "er" for the schwa. Yes, that's exactly what I was talking about, and more specifically about an unstressed schwa as in the first vowel of "potato" rather than the longer stressed sound that occurs in words like "fern" (as spoken by a non-rhotic person). Some Americans, including both Donna and Raymond, seem to think of schwa and "short U" as being, in some sense, ... be why "uh" gets used freely for both in American pronunciation spellings,...

Re: pooberty

bob cunningham — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 17:38:12 GMT

On 28 Aug 2004 08:35:31 -0700, R H Draney Jon Miller filted: * I assume Sara meant to write "pooberty" there. I've never had much occasion to use the word, but it would not have occurred to me to pronounce it any other way than ('pu:b@rti:) ("pooberty"). Now that I'm alerted, though, I'll be listening to see if I hear anyone pronouncing it another way. The (pu:) ("poo") pronunciation is common enough for Webster's Third New International Dictionary ( W3NID ) to show it as an alternative, albeit tagged with "sometimes". By the way, note that by itself the pronunciation spelling "poo" is at least ambiguous. "oo" can be as in "food" or "good"...

Re: Place name pronunciations

ben zimmer — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 21:31:01 GMT

I quite understand why rhotic people would find the usual ... in the language where the combination "uh" represents this sound? Good point, "uh" doesn't really appear in traditional English words, does it? Searching on in Onelook gives a list ... can call meaningful sounds, words) "uh" and "duh" actually use it. "Uh-huh" isn't quite the same, being a nasal "unh-hunh." Some might pronounce "uh-huh" and "uh-uh" as (V'hV) and (V'V) respectively, i.e., with the same vowel as "uh". (OED2 dates those forms to 1924, by the way.) I was surprised that the earliest OED2 cite for "uh" as a hesitation particle only comes from 1962 (as...

Re: Place name pronunciations

raymond s. wise — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:24:05 GMT

I quite understand why rhotic people would find the usual ... in the language where the combination "uh" represents this sound? Good point, "uh" doesn't really appear in traditional English words, does it? Searching on in Onelook gives a list ... can call meaningful sounds, words) "uh" and "duh" actually use it. "Uh-huh" isn't quite the same, being a nasal "unh-hunh." "Uh-oh" has the same vowel sound as "uh," although it has glottal stops which "uh" does not have. All I can think of is that we got used to that spelling from the sound-spellings that appeared in encyclopedias ... Merope (MER-uh-pee) It's the standard way that sound is...

Re: use to /used to [WAS: Can "Remain" Implement the Passive Voice?]

r j valentine — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 05:38:11 GMT

} "Raymond S. Wise" (Email Removed) wrote in message } }> }> Since the pronunciations are identical, this might confuse some people. } But }> it should be easy enough to memorize the distinction in spelling. "Used } to" }> is used where a past tense would be used, thus the "-d." (I should note } that }> MWCD11 does show a difference in pronunciation. In addition to the }> pronunciation /jus/ for the "used" in "used to," it also has the }> pronunciation /just/.) }> } } But it's not the -d that's the issue surely, it's the unvoiced 's'. The } verb 'use' that we do actually still, ahem, use is always pronounced with a } voiced z. On this...

Re: use to /used to [WAS: Can "Remain" Implement the Passive Voice?]

dr zen — Mon, 09 Aug 2004 04:46:21 GMT

I don't see why. Other languages have no problem with ... English is, as we all know, already far from phonetic. Just out of curiosity...which languages are you thinking of? Well, the obvious are languages that have different literary and spoken standards, such as German, Arabic and Greek. More interestingly, how about Albanian? It has two major dialects and is written in neither, but rather in a hybrid that no one actually speaks. Okay, I cheated. These languages can all be read out without problems, even though they are not actually spoken as such. How about Dutch? Danish? Malagasy? These are in descending order of pronounceability by rule. Japanese. I'm not sure of the detail, but I know that (some?) kanji can be read...

Re: Have a question about British accent.

xam0 — Sun, 08 Aug 2004 22:09:45 GMT

There is definately an upstate NY accent. The vowels in the middle of some words are either changed or pronounced as dipthongs. Ill put the normal spelling of some words followed by the upstate NY pronunciation.. and then the north jersey pronunciation (where im from) which is fairly neutral compared to upstate ny. Dog -- dwog -- dog Frog -- frohg --frog Cat -- keeyat -- kat Mat -- meeyat -- mat Walk -- wooawk -- wahk Map -- meeyap -- map Hat -- heeyat -- hat Creek -- crick -- kreek Water -- wuohdr -- wahdr Ball -- bowul -- bahl Fall -- fowul -- fahl Hair -- hayer -- hare Fair -- fayer -- fare Have -- hyav -- hav Has -- hyaz -- haz Also, upstate NY, like NJ does not make a distinction in pronunciation between "Mary,...

Re: the skinny?

sean o'leathlobhair — Sun, 25 Jul 2004 08:11:46 GMT

^ (= How?) Is this difference in the pronunciation to be expected? For ... then would he be able to predict the other's form? *Some* difference in pronunciation is to be expected. But which ones is completely unpredictable. While there is variation in the speech pool, there's no principle of natural selection. Or put another way, does the different spelling reflect a ... vowel of "mother" and we respelt to reflect our pronunciation? Sorry, I was not very clear. Let's forget the written form completely for a moment. If a phonetician interviewed the two of us, I would expect that he would find some patterns e.g. "When John says (abc), Seán says (xyz)" and he could start to guess my pronunciation from yours...

Re: the skinny?

john lawler — Sat, 24 Jul 2004 15:16:53 GMT

^ (= How?) Americans say /ma:m/ (with a relatively long /a:/, since it's stressed and precedes a voiced nasal). "Mum" is marked as non-American, or very hurried. Is this difference in the pronunciation to be expected? For example, if a phonetician had many samples of our speech ... would pronounce it. Or if he heard one of us then would he be able to predict the other's form? *Some* difference in pronunciation is to be expected. But which ones is completely unpredictable. While there is variation in the speech pool, there's no principle of natural selection. Or put another way, does the different spelling reflect a real difference or is it just arbitrary: you kept the written vowel of "mother" and we...

Re: the skinny?

sean o'leathlobhair — Sat, 24 Jul 2004 10:50:31 GMT

^ (= How?) Naw, that's how Somerset pronounces it. Americans say /ma:m/ (with a relatively long /a:/, since it's stressed and precedes a ... Nothing in Nature so irksome as general Discourses, especially when they turn chiefly upon Words." Joseph Addison, Spectator, #267 Is this difference in the pronunciation to be expected? For example, if a phonetician had many samples of our speech but not "mom / mum", would he be able to predict how we would pronounce it. Or if he heard one of us then would he be able to predict the other's form? Or put another way, does the different spelling reflect a real difference or is it just arbitrary: you kept the written vowel of "mother" and we respelt to reflect our...

Re: Spelling sounds in English

robert bannister — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 02:23:10 GMT

accent circonflexe) % is that diacritic I have never known the name ... smiley - so %u means a smiley over the u. That diacritic is called a "breve" in English. Thanks for that. I always wondered. - prince. There may well be people for whom 'prince' and 'prints' are homophones, but I still think 'prints' would have been a better example. I agree. MWCD11 has for the pronunciation of "prince" "'prin(t)s". Something like "hats" would be better. Agreed. I can't think of an imported German word where most English speakers would say the z as ts (Zeitgeist). The word "zeitgeist" has the same problem as "tsar": They have more than one pronunciation....

Re: Spelling sounds in English

areff — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 01:54:16 GMT

How many Americans are aware that the "long 'o'"of Received Pronunciation is different from the American "long 'o'"? Some American accents have a "long 'o'" that is similar to the "long 'o'" of RP. How 'bout Philadelphia/South Jersey? There's also the question of the Esperanto "a": It can be the "ah" of "are," /A/, or the sound /a/, ... the beginning of the diphthongs "eye, /aI/, and "ow," /aU/. (Again, I don't know whether this agrees with the Fundamento.) What do you mean "/a/ ... does not exist in American English"? How would you notate the "father" vowel of Eastern New England accents?...

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Re: use to /used to [WAS: Can "Remain" Implement the Passive Voice?]

Re: use to /used to [WAS: Can "Remain" Implement the Passive Voice?]

Re: Have a question about British accent.

Re: the skinny?

Re: the skinny?

Re: the skinny?

Re: Spelling sounds in English

Re: Spelling sounds in English

Re: On "data" pronunciation