how do you pronounce the name that is 'stephen'?

you are all crazy.

some stephens may like to be called 'steven' but they are just kidding themselves.

what I am saying is that dastoor and cook are cunts. this is only truth.

stefan=steh-fan?
steven=stee-ven?
stephen=stee-fen/stee-ven?
stephan=steh-fan?

I guess that I am really arguing that 'stephen' is DEFINITELY NOT ALWAYS 'stee-ven' and, in my experience, not even most commonly.

AND THANK YOU, AILSA.

_____________________________________________________________________

I say "PH is always F."

dastoor warns "you can't think of english as a consistent language!!"

I say "I should think of it as a completely consistent language [wrt this] except for one crazy deviancy??"

-

I ask ally "is your name [alasdair] pronounced w/ a D or a T like alastair and alistair?"

ally reveals "well, with a D but I don't mind" !!!!

he and dastoor begin to disagree about this and I let them.

-

nick brings up my use of 'disinterest', telling me that it is not, in fact, 'a lack of interest' but a state of objectivity or neutrality!

even though dictionaries have an actual definition that says 'a lack of interest'. he says this is because people have used it incorrectly for long enough.

I say "is disintegration not a lack of integration?"

dastoor says "you're thinking about english as a consistent language again!!" !!!

&

I say "PH as V and not F seems like TH as F or [crazily] V--laziness of part of the pronouncer."

ally says "yes, well, so what? that is how it is pronounced now."

these were not their only contradictions as an argueteam.

-

i ask: are these not the same thing? if you are disinterested, you have no interests in (whatever), so you don't care one way or the other, hence you are neutral.

rjg is right, n. and ally, much like the english language, are full of contradiction

Stephen is probably the older spelling, since there's a Greek name Stephanos (I'm just assuming the English name derives from it) -- but you're focusing on the fact that it appears to be an exception in the use of "ph," when in fact it does follow the overall pattern of words retaining older spellings after pronunciation has shifted. (There are whole sets of synonyms or near-synonyms in English from dictionaries formalizing spellings for "two words" which were simply the same word pronounced with different regional accents.)

And come to think of it, offhand I can't think of many words other than "women" in which "o" is pronounced that way. Nor silent b's that don't follow m's, other than in "debt" (which is one of those near-synonyms; "debt" and "debit" both waltzed in, but we could've done with just one of em).

so, you're backing me up by saying it was F and is now V?

But -- okay, yeah, this looks like it's the only PH->V shift ... but we only have one O->I shift, too, and I assume you don't want to pronounce "women" to rhyme with "nomen." The letters involved aren't really important enough to make it unusual.

'women' always made me angry as a small boy. etc.

this has sidetracked a little; it all began because dastoor and cook denied and made fun of my pronunciation. which is not right. their making fun of. not my pronunciation.

dastoor can't have mocking my back-dated 'correct' pronunc. AND have his denying my up-dated 'disinterest'. OK.

The disinterest one is tricky. There aren't actually good words in English to explain the very different ways people use the dis- prefix. I mean, look at "disagree": it's more than a simple lack of agreement. I don't agree with nickalicious that bagels with caramel sauce are tasty (I'm making up an example here) -- but I don't disagree with him, either, cause I've never had one. Disagree is the opposite of agree, not just the lack of it.

... had to answer work email in the other window and forgot where I was going with that. Eventual point was: I don't have a problem with your use of "disinterest," and don't agree with the idea that "new" or more recent usages of words are automatically incorrect.

yes, the best source for examples of changed or 'incorrect' pronunciations are the extreme cockneys [whom I do not hate].

TH as F or V and R as W or missed and no real T at all [the last is common w/ a lot of scots accents, too].

you try pronouncing like these and you can feel your tongue not touching teeth/palate...your tongue barely moves.

THURSDAY = fuh[w]z-day???

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drd500/d595/d59581r1wit.jpgSteven
I hear my name. (Steven)
Is someone calling me ?
I hear my name. (Steven)

Innit.

RJG is right, I don't know why this is even a question. How do you people pronounce Pharrell???

You say potato, I say potato. Er, that doesn't work written down really, does it?

Of course there's denying it. There's no letter, and likely no combination of letters, which can only ever make one sound in English. It's just not one of our rules. It's not built that way.

my 'stephen' is from
slavic grandfather to whom
the 'V' was just dumb

craphouse... no phucking "f" there is there...

back to the point of 'women'. help me out here.

'women' is [are] another COMPLETE ANOMALY. like this stupid PH as V in ONE INSTANCE.

I can't make these same points more than two or three more times. but I might have to force myself to.

you said plenty of times that 'stephen' is a name of greek origin. in its original form the PH would be F. therefore: PH as V is WRONG IN A WAY even if accepted by EVERYONE. moreso: PH as F is RIGHTER IN A WAY even if IGNORED.

You're misunderstanding the way language works as much as Dastoor was.

xp --

How was I misunderstanding it?

I think it's a useful distinction, it just doesn't make the other usage outright wrong. Once enough people start using something, and continue to do so for long enough, there's just no reasonable standard you can dig out to weigh right from wrong.

Anyway, ignore that line if you want, I was just trying to point out to RJG that his focus on right vs. wrong was off-mark, and that he'd been complaining about you doing the same thing.

I do not like your not liking my pronunciation of 'stephen'.

That's off the top of my head, so I could be missing a detail; it's one of those things in like "1001 wacky facts about English" and whatnot.

(My mother buys me a new page-a-day calendar every Christmas.)

Lieutenant vs lefftenant!

the lieu and tenant thing is pretty obvious.

how come columbo was only a lieutenant?

I admire RJG's obstinance on this thread.

to me, it will always sound best as "Stef-en".

This is because "Stef-en" -- is short and sharp and rhythmic.

Whereas "Steev-in"/"Stee-van"/"Stee-ven"/etc has a sort of faltering, nasal quality (from the emphasis on the vowels in the middle no doubt) that sounds meeker than the other version.

in short :
"Steven" sounds like a kid
"Stefan" sounds like an adult

I pronounce Stefan as "Stef-an" (which isn't too far from my preferred way of pronouncing Stephen, which -- as I mentioned above --is "Stef-en".

That's why I used "Stefan" in my last example instead of "Stephen" -- because if I wrote "Stephen" then people wouldn't know how I was pronouncing it! ...

--------

Stephen sounds like a kid
Stephen sounds like an adult

--------

-- see what I mean? ;)

Oh, you didn't ask about how I pronounce Steven, but I pronounce it "Stee-ven" with a slightly longer "e" sound in the middle. If that's how you pronounce "Stephen" -- well, that's ok -- we'll agree to disagree. :)

just the sheer size of this thread!