The Pronunciation Thread

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or, How do you say ________?

― Cub, Wednesday, 4 June 2003 18:51 (twenty-two years ago)

missile.

i say it missyle (or miss aisle, if you will) but every one else seems to say miss ull (or at very best miss ill). i just generally assume that "ull" or "ill" is the american pronunciation (like pronouncing mobile "mo bull") and therefore incorrect (sorry).

so which is it? are there brits and others who say miss ull and mo bull and americans who say miss aisle and mo byle?

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 19:03 (twenty-two years ago)

ha ha ... mo' bile!

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 19:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I think most Southerners (US) would say miss aisle and mo byle, but, seeing how they're dialect is closer to British anyway, that's not much of a surprise.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 19:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Mobile Alabama pronounced mo BEAL! but i think most southerners say MISS uhl and MO bull

― Aaron A., Wednesday, 4 June 2003 19:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Pet peeve: people who spell it like they say it: missle.

I say hou/z/es. Who says hou/s/es?

― Paul Eater (eater), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 19:39 (twenty-two years ago)

sand-widges or sand-witches orsand-ha-witches ?

― bert (bert), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

milk or melk.

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 19:47 (twenty-two years ago)

i've been trying to teach the lovely Emma B how to say "mountain" and such words in correct American style and getting excoriated for it by others

she says "moun-ten"

what is wrong with this you ask

if you are an american you will be LAUGHED AT if you pronounce the "t"

this is not the classic "substitute 'd' for 't' rule" as in the word "water", this is a peculiarly american habit of actually swallowing the "t" whole, in the back of one's throat

made famous and exaggerated by a certain sitcom wherein characters would yell to all parts of the house after discovering some particularly ruinous situation: "maaaaar! iiiin!!!!!!!!" ("martin") and the increasingly popular / decreasingly hilarious "no you DI-INT!!"

anyway i am told that i am wrecking her accent, teaching her wrong: but THIS IS THE ONLY RIGHT PRONUNCIATION on this continent, which is WHERE SHE LIVES

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 19:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm really curious how you anglophones pronounce "über".

― Sommermute (Wintermute), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 20:07 (twenty-two years ago)

ooh brr

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 20:09 (twenty-two years ago)

why does my one friend insist on pronouncing "coin" as COY YIN?! just don't!!

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 20:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't like it when people pronounce the 'l' in almond. Or don't put the ridiculous 'ph' sound that you're supposed to put in lieutenant if you're English. Or, when actually talking about pronunciation, say 'pronOUNCiation'. I do, however, like it when people say 'fook' or 'fork' instead of fuck. That's just cute.

― Cathy, Wednesday, 4 June 2003 20:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I always pronounced communal "com myounal" until someone told me off and told me it should be "comyu null".

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 20:52 (twenty-two years ago)

kuh mu-nil

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 20:56 (twenty-two years ago)

emphasis on the 'mu'

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 20:57 (twenty-two years ago)

anyway we did this here!

Gi-llanders not Gillon-does!

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 20:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't like it when people pronounce the 'l' in almond.

yeah ... but that's the RIGHT way to say it.

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 21:02 (twenty-two years ago)

oh oh oh! i've got a good one.

spanakopita

figure that out.

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 21:03 (twenty-two years ago)

sounds Greek! should it really be spelt like this:

σπανακοριτα

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 21:09 (twenty-two years ago)

span-a-kop-i-ta

with the stress on span and kop - how else?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 21:41 (twenty-two years ago)

SPAN-a-KOP-it-a

sand-widges or sand-witches orsand-ha-witches ?
Eeeeeasy: "sang-witches"

bury: rhymes with "worry" or sounds like "berry"?
roof: rewf or ruf?

my favorite: footballers play DEE-fense. Do brits ever say DEE-fense?

Why do some midwesterners say EYE-talian? I doubt they say EYE-tal-y. They likely do say EYE-ran and EYE-raq.

Congratulate me I'm the Andy f'ing Rooney of ILX.

― Hunter (Hunter), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 22:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow, this thread is much better if you read the posts in Andy Rooney's voice. That is, if you consider something to be better if it makes you wanna throw yourself off a bridge.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 22:20 (twenty-two years ago)

how do you pronounce 'man and wife' haw haw

― Chip Morningstar (bob), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 22:41 (twenty-two years ago)

bury: rhymes with "worry" or sounds like "berry"?

"rhymes with 'worry'" is only plausible if you pronounce "worry" so it rhymes with "furry" rather than "lorry".

But when I say "bury" it sounds like "berry". I grew up in the American Midwest and I don't think my accent was affected much by eleven years, college through grad school, spent in New York, or by seven years, through the present, living in Northern California.

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Thursday, 5 June 2003 00:13 (twenty-two years ago)

if you taped yourself conversing many of you would probably find you pronounce a lot of these words more than one way. hou/s/es vs hou/z/es, for example. this one feature of english won't explain all changes, but english speakers have a habit of turning all unstressed vowels into schwas (not all languages do this). since stress can be changed by a word's position in a sentence or by prosody, you don't always say words the same way.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Thursday, 5 June 2003 00:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Or don't put the ridiculous 'ph' sound that you're supposed to put in lieutenant if you're English.

I want to point out that I'm amused that you chose "ph" rather than "f" to represent that sound.

― Chris P (Chris P), Thursday, 5 June 2003 04:07 (twenty-two years ago)

How do you lot pronounce 'subtly'?

― Leee (Leee), Thursday, 5 June 2003 05:07 (twenty-two years ago)

suttely

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 5 June 2003 05:09 (twenty-two years ago)

no, sutly!

― MarkH (MarkH), Thursday, 5 June 2003 06:34 (twenty-two years ago)

"rhymes with 'worry'" is only plausible if you pronounce "worry" so it rhymes with "furry" rather than "lorry".

This sentence is wrong in more ways that I can count.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 5 June 2003 07:56 (twenty-two years ago)

It had me baffled too.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 June 2003 08:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I pronounce "worry" to rhyme with "slurry", NOT "furry" OR "lorry". But I guess "furry" rhymes with "slurry" if you're American.

― Sam (chirombo), Thursday, 5 June 2003 08:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Are there fewer distinct vowel sounds in American English, do you think? For me, none of the following words rhyme: worry, furry, lorry, Corey, testicle.

― Sam (chirombo), Thursday, 5 June 2003 08:47 (twenty-two years ago)

In Ireland certaintly furry rhymes with worry.

Though down the country, furry rhymes with worry rhymes with lorry.

So what do you rhyme furry with, Sam?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 5 June 2003 08:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Furry rhymes with blurry. Worry rhymes with hurry (although since I've lived oop north, worry sometimes also comes out rhyming with lorry).

Similarly: glass, grass, bath?

― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 5 June 2003 08:53 (twenty-two years ago)

So is blurry bluh-ry?

I should have pointed out that down the country furry and worry stay mostly the same, but lorry becomes lurry.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 5 June 2003 08:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm a strong believer in pronouncing place names the way the locals would. So Bath is "Barth" but i rhyme Hull with "pull" rather than "cull".

However, I don't extend this to places overseas - I don't call Paris "Pa-ree".

― MarkH (MarkH), Thursday, 5 June 2003 08:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Furry rhymes with blurry. ie blur-ree, fur-ree. (not bluh-ree)

― Sam (chirombo), Thursday, 5 June 2003 09:00 (twenty-two years ago)

One day (ie never) I will write a wonderful computer program that works out where you are from on the basis of your vowel sounds.

― Sam (chirombo), Thursday, 5 June 2003 09:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I shocked a fellow ILXer recently by revealing that I say 'Kraftwerk' rather than 'Kraftverk'. He thought it was appalling so I pointed to the 'Paris'/'Paree' case. He thought about it a while and decided the 'pronounce it as the locals do' rule didn't apply to places.

When I lived in Manchester, I asked for clarification of the pronunciation of Bury. People from Bury say Buh-ry rather than Berry, but the consensus was that this was considered ridiculous to everyone else and not to be followed.

Shrewsbury = Shrewsbury to the working class and Shrovesbury to poshos, whether or not one is local.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 June 2003 09:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Surely no-one says Shrovesbury, N. Don't you mean Shrowsbury?

― MarkH (MarkH), Thursday, 5 June 2003 09:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 June 2003 09:27 (twenty-two years ago)

A few years ago, I had a colleague in a customer service job who always pronounced 'warranty' in the same way as 'guarantee' - ie with the emphasis on the last syallable. I've never heard anyone else do this.

― robster (robster), Thursday, 5 June 2003 09:41 (twenty-two years ago)

but ppl in bath don't pronounce it with the 'r' in. also i rhyme cull with pull...

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Thursday, 5 June 2003 09:41 (twenty-two years ago)

OK, help needed. We're just having a discussion in our office about the proper way of saying 'scone'. I pronounce it 'scoan' & they pronounce it 'scon'. I say the posh way is 'scon', but what's write?

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Thursday, 5 June 2003 10:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think it's quite that simple. Scone/Scon variation is all over the place, culturally and geographically. I was brought up to say 'scon'. In Scotland, everyone seems to say 'scon' too. I think I saw a map of scone/scon variations across the country once. Like I say, it was a complex picture. Maybe you're right that regardless of region, poshos say 'scon' but I'm not sure.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 June 2003 10:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd have thought the other way. Scoan takes longer to say, and is thus a sign of the leisured classes. (cf Shrewsbury)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 5 June 2003 10:09 (twenty-two years ago)

More of a sign of the 'milk in first' aspirational middle classes, I would have thought.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 June 2003 10:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Being a foreigner, it took me a while to notice that "extraordinary" is pronounced "extrordinary", and not the way it's written.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 5 June 2003 10:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Skipping 382 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

As a person who tries, with varying success, to figure out how French people would say a word in French, I lean more toward cun-yack.

Here you go:

https://forvo.com/word/cognac/#fr

― pomenitul, Tuesday, 16 March 2021 01:40 (four years ago)

Ha, I went to Forvo after I posted. I pronounce it mostly like the English speaker TopQuark, although maybe I have been saying something like Khan-yak or Kayn(e)-ak. I started thinking about this because I got hit with a cone-yack today.

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 02:16 (four years ago)

And I just now enjoyed listening to the way this borrowed word is pronounced by speakers of different languages.

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 02:23 (four years ago)

Just noticed Forvo has the pronunciation written out as well. For that sound it has ɒ, the open back rounded vowel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_back_rounded_vowel

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 02:28 (four years ago)

Whereas for French it has the neighboring ɔ sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_back_rounded_vowel

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 02:34 (four years ago)

Also see: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cognac

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 02:35 (four years ago)

Kog-knack

― treeship., Tuesday, 16 March 2021 02:38 (four years ago)

In any case, this seems like a classic case of trying to approximate a vowel sound that we don't have in English and getting on either side of it. Also now comparing saying it in English versus saying it in French, or even saying the Spanish version coñac. For those two I feel my lips pursing a bit.

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 02:41 (four years ago)

Hey, Wiktionary led me to what seems to be a pretty nice French dictionary I never came across before. https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/cognac

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 02:42 (four years ago)

Dutch version uses the same vowel sound but the "gn' is pronounced a little differently and there is a strong accent on the second sylllable.

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 02:43 (four years ago)

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 02:43 (four years ago)

i say Cone-Yak and Khan-Yak depending on the moment but more often hear it colloquially referred to as "yak" or by brand.
i also do not drink so it's less of an issue but i did tend bar for a year or two.

― G.A.G.S. (Gophers Against Getting Stuffed) (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 03:29 (four years ago)

I recently heard someone use the word "epoch", pronouncing it somewhat close to "epic". It struck me that I'd never heard this word spoken out loud as I'd always imagined it would be "ee-pok".

― Kim Kimberly, Tuesday, 16 March 2021 05:55 (four years ago)

That's how I'd say it.

― nickn, Tuesday, 16 March 2021 06:04 (four years ago)

I said “epock” in my head until taking a course where a teacher said “epic” thousands of times

― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 06:11 (four years ago)

"eepock" is "standard" Brit pron

― massaman gai (front tea for two), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 08:11 (four years ago)

Think in US it is eh-puck

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 12:42 (four years ago)

But yes I see U.K. pronunciation is as you say

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 12:44 (four years ago)

TS Khans vs. Yaks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGO-SldLrNA

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 12:48 (four years ago)

just call it brandy

― mahb, Tuesday, 16 March 2021 12:51 (four years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTqTE7aNjZQ

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 13:32 (four years ago)

In Japanese cognac and konjac are not only homophones but share identical katakana which makes menu misreading interesting sometimes.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 15:31 (four years ago)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/86/Conrack1974.jpg

― nickn, Tuesday, 16 March 2021 16:39 (four years ago)

Ha!

― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 18:05 (four years ago)

just call it brandy

― mahb, Tuesday, March 16, 2021 5:51 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i once asked for a pint of guinness and a cognac in a glasgow pub and the bartender said "you can have a pint of guinness and a brandy

― himpathy with the devil (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 16 March 2021 18:20 (four years ago)

If it's not an appellation d'origine contrôlée, sure.

― pomenitul, Tuesday, 16 March 2021 18:28 (four years ago)

Just heard a shitty, soppy old '50s song where the singer pronounced 'fingers' as if the break between the syllables came after the 'g'. 'FING-ers'. I pretty much barfed all over myself when that happened.

― Clem McFlannery's Clam Phlegm Cannery (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 23 March 2021 18:47 (four years ago)

nine months pass...

Is .wav wave or wav?

― .xlsm (P. Flick), Wednesday, 19 January 2022 20:48 (three years ago)

I have never thought of it as wav.

― jimbeaux, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 20:50 (three years ago)

I think i know it's wave, but the pronunciation of a schoolmate from 20 odd years ago (southwest UK) has left me unable to move forward. I don't think this is like gif/jif where there was debate - and settlement? it's gif, right? - but curious if this is regional or just me and that one dude

― .xlsm (P. Flick), Wednesday, 19 January 2022 21:00 (three years ago)

i've never heard anything other than a "wave" file. gif vs jif is a fight where if you care you lose

― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 21:13 (three years ago)

Didn't the inventor of the GIF format publicly announce it's jif?

― nickn, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 21:17 (three years ago)

jif is the correct pronunciation of GIF, which is the acronym for Giraffe Information File.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Wednesday, 19 January 2022 21:24 (three years ago)

Giraffe Interchange Format, surely.

― nickn, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 21:26 (three years ago)

Who interchanges giraffes?!

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Wednesday, 19 January 2022 21:28 (three years ago)

Didn't the inventor of the GIF format publicly announce it's jif?

yes. then many years passed, and a lot of people who were born after the format were invented pronounced it in a different way. at this point, many people began losing by fighting about which way was best

― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 21:32 (three years ago)

I would say 'wav', fwiw.

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 21:32 (three years ago)

i always used to say wav. I think I knew it was probably "wave" but I read things phonetically

― kinder, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 22:30 (three years ago)

Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave"[8])

― Kim Kimberly, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 23:06 (three years ago)

waff, or gtfo

― Vinnie, Thursday, 20 January 2022 07:22 (three years ago)

like "suave"? Have never heard anyone ever say that.

― i cannot help if you made yourself not funny (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 23 January 2022 22:57 (three years ago)

i say it, but only as i use their products every morning.

*looks in peepcam*

"suave"

― Karl Malone, Sunday, 23 January 2022 23:01 (three years ago)

In the UK at least, Wav, like suave, never heard it called a 'Wave' file by anyone that has to actually deal with them in almost 30 years in audio.

― Maresn3st, Monday, 24 January 2022 00:05 (three years ago)

What is it called? A wavv? New to me but seems good

― Karl Malone, Monday, 24 January 2022 00:10 (three years ago)

Yeah, like 'have' with a w

― Maresn3st, Monday, 24 January 2022 00:15 (three years ago)

my problem is i'm thinking of sin waves and triangle and square waves

― Karl Malone, Monday, 24 January 2022 00:18 (three years ago)

just basic building block components of sound. i know that's different than the filetype and all of that. i just associate them that way, may be alone in that

― Karl Malone, Monday, 24 January 2022 00:19 (three years ago)

two years pass...

Regex

Hard or soft g?

― ionjusit (P. Flick), Monday, 22 July 2024 18:37 (one year ago)

sgoth niseach while you're at it

― ionjusit (P. Flick), Monday, 22 July 2024 18:44 (one year ago)

always heard/decided it was soft g but that might be because it feels easier to say

― brimstead, Monday, 22 July 2024 20:06 (one year ago)

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