How do you pronounce "envelope"?

alienating myself from everyone, i do both

I've speculated about whether this might be a vestigial linguistic trait inherited from my French mum, but some of my other friends from back home who I straw polled say "On-velope" too.

I say it both ways. Sorry you had to deal with that.

but adding a class factor to the soon to be obvious international factor, i do "envelope" more often when i'm in the louvre's vip room and "onvelpe" more when i'm rolling in the barn

the people in the barn are astonished by onvelpe and don't say much

mid 16th century (in the sense ‘wrapper, enveloping layer’; originally as envelope ): from French enveloppe

It's French, so I think you're correct... I say ON-velope

My late grandma used to pronounce 'almond' with a silent L, and when I called her on it, she said "Well, the fish isn't a SOL-man, is it?"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/envelope

Some great polls on ile today.

EN-velope with friends and family (comfortability allowing authenticity)
ON-velope with all others (keeping up appearances, sticking to the more formal sounding version)

That feeling of being corrected by a herd of people when you know you are right…man!

Also, good post by H.P.

I waver between the two. Neither one sounds more correct to my ear than the other.

well i just have to put up with the soreness after licking envelopes all day, because life is tough and it involves licking glue all day!

but of course with these nice onvelopes i got for my wedding anniversary i can just use a sponge

This is one of those things where the technically right thing, is definitely the wrong thing. If you vote ON-velope you are most likely against the working-class and eat pizza with a knife and fork and I will not elaborate on this any further

I'm pretty sure I say EN, but thinking about it now it's possible sometimes I say ON. ... Yeah, pretty sure I do. Hmm. I wonder how I decide? What switch in my brain makes that distinction?

Have we ever done “mantra”?

Seriously, I think I might unconsciously change my pronunciation based on how nice the envelope looks. Plain white envelope that came in the mail? EN for sure. Embroidered off-white shaded envelope with a velvety touch? You know exactly how that one is pronounced

Or done this one? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aunt

'outside the ENvelope' sounds weird to me

xps surely mantra is MAHN-tra, right? Does anyone say MAN-tra?

xp
exactly, an envelope is very normal to be outside of, a box, don't get outside of that

where we at one 'route'? ROOT or ROWTE

'Paper ROOT' sounds weird.. but 'ROWTE 66' sounds weird as well

honestly don't get in the envelope

very hard to breathe in there

the

THA or THO? OR THU? how do we talk with all of these options

Between this and the backsplash thread I think blood will be spread.

"Ehn-vell-ope" because it used to annoy my dad

There is perhaps some kind of flexible safety-oriented codeswitching involved in using multiple pronunciations based upon which tribe one is immediately amongst. I seemed to recall that Viv Stanshall was taught to speak posh at home but then changed his tune as soon as he went out the front door– like going from tape to film! - so as to avoid problems with the local toughs.

This hotel chain in Australia has really confused our pronunciation of mantra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgh88mTnkhU

Aunt is simply a commonwealth vs. us thing right? Yankees say ant, brits/aussies/nz/cannuks say aunt

she pretty much mispronounced every midwestern english word, very embarrassing!

i say 'ant' because i reminds me of some of my favorite insect pals, ants

xps surely mantra is MAHN-tra, right? Does anyone say MAN-tra?

Tbh I don’t like either pronunciation of “aunt.”

Yeah I typically just say mums-sister Pam, much more to the point

EN-velope, as in En Vogue, which I always thought was On Vogue until about a week ago.

wtf is this mahn-tra crap?

I'm wondering if in the US and Canada "ON-velope" is more common.

And, like others are saying, as I've been reading this thread I realise I seem to switch naturally between the ON and EN pronunciations in my head and I'm not sure of what's causing it. Is it to do with neighbouring syllables?

"French EN-velope" sounds more natural than "French ON-velope"
But a casual, conversational "pass me an ON-velope" sounds more natural to me because it involves less effort to enunciate.

I'm sure everyone in the UK says 'mantra' the same way, with short "a"s throughout. None of this "mahwn-tra" business

Also "route" and "root" are always pronounced the same in UK English as far as I know

Like “Route 66”?

PA-sta or PAW-sta?

UK seems to favor the former, but I assume the US use is maybe closer to italian?

Ah, ooh, this is worth a watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFDvAK8Z-Jc

Explains the pasta thing among others

xp Is that Wilko Johnson?

We are overlooking an important resource:
https://forvo.com/word/envelope/

https://forvo.com/search/Mantra/en_uk/
https://forvo.com/search/Mantra/en_usa/

https://forvo.com/search/aunt/en_usa/
https://forvo.com/search/aunt/en_uk/

Wow I somehow never came across the British pronunciation of mantra, or forgot it if I did. Curious about the evolution of the U.S. ahn.

Short-a "pasta" I am aware of. So what is the linguistic rule then in British pronunciation? Is "a" always short before a consonant or something? Or is there just less of an "ah" vowel presence overall?

depends on whether it's the noun or the verb

i knew this girl in college who would say CAR-uh-mel rather than CAR-mel or CARE-uh-mel

saying ON-velop definitely has the whiff of somebody who insists on saying it the "correct" way based on some misguided notion or another, but i think i agree with other posters that i probably do say it that way sometimes; couldn't say why

XP British English it's CAH-ruh-mel

seems like i would probably say "the EN-velope" and "an ON-velope"

xp -- same thing i meant by the first pronunciation!

And the 'l' in almond is silent but tunes the "a" into a long a: so "AR-mund".

I hear some American podcasters pronounce the "l" in "folks" which sounds strange to me

i would say the L in psalm and salve but not folk

Never knew of the American pronunciation of mantra. Or og pronouncing 'l' in almond.

AS for envelope, I say ON - I think it's not only a class but also an age thing (in British English). Younger people say EN I think.

I definitely say the l in folks. It's kind of soft but it's there.

Weirdly, one of my kids says the l in walk, like WALL-k. Which is not part of the regional accent here or anything I've ever heard anyone say, I think it comes from him learning to read and hearing it that way in his head.

Thinking about it I just pronounce envelope either way somewhat randomly. Now is that IE-thuh or EE-thuh?

“Hand me an envelope please”

Vs

“Do you have any Manila ah-velope”

I think I do both depending what the previous word is

doing this on a board where i can't tell who's american and who isn't is confusing

M&M character says on-velope

i alternate between the two each time i say it

This possibility of "mantra" having any other pronunciation other than "rhymes with man in a vantra" is doing me head in.

"marrntra"? I have not ever heard anyone even from other countries say it that way?

i think it's a discrepancy of phonetics / orthography tbh. we all need to learn the IPA and report back

It’s kinda funny how uk & Aussie posters keep insisting on how wrong & puzzling other pronunciations are by filling words with a load of Rs nobody actually says as if that isn’t strange in itself

Onvelope when it’s a noun

EnVELope when it’s a verb

Letters are enVELoped in ONvelopes

Aunt is simply a commonwealth vs. us thing right? Yankees say ant, brits/aussies/nz/cannuks say aunt

What? Who says aunt?

I mean, some posh people might, but they talk funny.

i know a number of Americans that say "awnt" ... I am and have always been an "ant" person

People seem to be talking about "American English" and "British English" as if they are monolithic entities, which of course they aren't, most people don't speak that way - in the UK especially.

i know a number of Americans that say "awnt" ... I am and have always been an "ant" person

I have indeed heard Americans say "awnt" and wondered what on Earth they were doing.

Oont

jag-you-ont

Do people say “auntie”? That’s why I say aunt, because it’s never “anty”

say envelope both ways which is the right of a people not speaking their own tongue in their own land nach bfhuil

my a's are another thing entirely

au in aunt = al in almond

= ar in armando

Do people say “auntie”? That’s why I say aunt, because it’s never “anty”

Nothing wrong with "anty".

unVElop

Tom D is right though - there are dozens if not hundreds of regional UK accents and it differs wildly.

Generally speaking, Southern speakers would say 'a:nt' with a long A, while anyone north of the Danelaw would say 'ant'

everyone is wrong bcz it's eMvelope and oMvelope ffs use yr ears ppl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjKs11YZhZk

Aunt is simply a commonwealth vs. us thing right? Yankees say ant, brits/aussies/nz/cannuks say aunt

Aunt is simply a commonwealth vs. us thing right? Yankees say ant, brits/aussies/nz/cannuks say aunt

It's back to ant in Newfoundland

is that a RUSH lyric?

pawsta and mawntra

Now see, I don’t feel like I ever hear that pronunciation either. Standard US for both is ah, not aw.

The American overcorrection described sounds way more off from the Spanish to me than the a from man — see also lows lowbows — but that’s prob cause I grew up hearing passta and not pahhsta. afaict the actual vowel sounds of these Romance languages is somewhere right in the middle between the American mangling & ours, we’re just saying it wrong in different directions

The pronunciation some USians do that throws me isn’t saying the l in folks but missing the one in wolf or solder

woof

The American overcorrection described sounds way more off from the Spanish to me than the a from man — see also lows lowbows — but that’s prob cause I grew up hearing passta and not pahhsta. afaict the actual vowel sounds of these Romance languages is somewhere right in the middle between the American mangling & ours, we’re just saying it wrong in different directions

This question is represented graphically in the youtube dog latin posted upthread. It's true of course that the real Romance "a" falls between the way most Yanks and Brits pronounce it, but the US way tends to be slightly closer to the original, at least based on that graphic (which is what the narrator says). FWIW and all that.

I didn't know that anyone pronounced the "l" in solder, interesting.

I watched Ladies' Man, a pre-Code 1931 talkie in which Willian Powell and Kay Francis take turns e-nun-cee-a-ting e-ve-ry sy-l-la-ble.

You can track the evolution of the US pronunciation of "lingerie" from early Hollywood talkies; there used to be more than one option.

i don't pronounce "data" with a long "a", which confuses people. also i'm a data analyst so i say "data" a lot.

rhymes with Penelope imo

oh, won't you please envelop me
just like an en-VEL-o-pee

yeah

People pronounce "solder" as "soda"??

ENvelope
MANtra not MAHNtra
ANT
sometimes ROOT, sometimes ROUT
thǝ
PAHsta
CAREamel
EEther, nEEther
SODDER

EYE-ther or EE-ther?

People pronounce "solder" as "soda"??

More like SAW-der... that's the American version

"Sodder." Which was evidently the original pronunciation when the word was borrowed from the French "souder." Later on, English-speakers added the "l" to Latinize the word (as in "solidare") and some speakers started pronouncing the "l"

There's a lot of French pronunciations in American English which I suspect got phased out in British English due to anti-French sentiments.

"Push the EN-ve-lope" sounds better to my ear than "push the ON-ve-lope."

Unrelated, but when I say "syrup" it rhymes with "stirrup." When my wife says "syrup" it rhymes with "cheer up." Probably regional.

i say en-VEL-up when i'm referring to the piece of paper and ONvelope when i mean wrapping around someone or something

For real? I'm exactly the opposite.

just kidding

Envelop is spelled differently

Ok Britishes show me the f in lieutenant

And then maybe we'll talk about the r in colonel

Apparently, there was no consensus on the pronunciation of "Los Angeles" until the mid-30s, at least. Before then, there was a debate between using the soft Spanish "g" and the hard English "g." So, naturally, they went with something else entirely.

who fucking pronounces the 'l' in 'solder'? some fucking illiterate fuck, that's who

'envelope' (the noun) is pronounces "ON vel ope" I will not hear of any other pronunciation. the verb is pronounced differently.

i don't pronounce "data" with a long "a", which confuses people. also i'm a data analyst so i say "data" a lot.

I was so much solder then

LOL @ sodder. Who knew?

Soul-juh

in conclusion language is a moveable feast

getting annoyed by any of it is probably for pricks tho

On-velope, awnt and sodder. Apart from the aunt we call Anti Mary to signal our true feelings.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Sodder is totally bizarre and new to me. I had no idea

Surely no one pronounces the ending as 'der' (rather than 'jer')?

I'm confused now. I need to hear someone say it.

I say it SOUL-dur, which until recently I assumed was the only way to say it

Not in the US.

i've heard 'sodder' on the tubes - more like 'sahdder' really.

How does one pronounce “caulk” in polite company? As in, “I need to go get some caulk.” This trips me up embarrassingly often (I do a lot of caulking).

So you say the end of the word the same as the end of harder, bidder, welder? I say it the same as the end of major, or the middle of algebra, or the start of Jamaica, and until this thread was unaware that anyone didn't do the same.

Are you talking about soldier or solder?

Soldier

Ah. I see.

'Soldier' - depends really, somewhere between a soft 'd' and a hard 'j'.

What about 'video'? I remember people finding it strange that I would often truncate it to "VIH-jo" and since then took steps to pronounce it as three syllables "Vi-dee-oh"

Dog Latin 0:30-0:35 should settle that for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsvLjAzozE

(xp) Guy I knew said his mother used to pronounce it vee-dee-oh. A classicist obv.

a real classicist wd say it "vee-day-oh"

It’s sodder, and a soddering iron

Either and neither change depending on the context

Pahsta vs pawsta, I say both, depends on the quality of the pasta

The difference between caulk and cock is subtle, like the difference between where and wear

I have been convinced to pronounce American cities with French names in their local style— Coeur d’Alene is cordelane, Louisville is lowville, Des Moines is day moyne

But even when I’m talking about the Harvey Keitel movie it will always be Bad Leftenant

It's Lootenant

Unless it's Left-tennant Pigeon

Zed Zed Top

It's Lootenant

Unless it's Left-tennant Pigeon

Funny you should say that but I was watching a clip of "Mouldy Old Dough" from a TOTP recently and Tony Blackburn said Lootenant - if it's good enough for Tony.

It’s sodder, and a soddering iron

LMFAO

Oh gorblimey, where did I put me soddering iron.

'Moddy Odd Dough' surely xps

dough shd be pronounced "duff" (as in plum duff)

I do say lootenant to when referring to British officers when I’m feeling anti-militaristic which is usually

Oh gorblimey, where did I put me soddering iron.

Universal Sodder

It's only and Onvelope if you are pushing it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The proletariat takes another W against the bourgeoisie