"Nike" pronunciation poll

Seriously, why is there more than one way to say this?

There's isn't.

Nikkei

Oh believe me, coming from a former shoe store employee. People are v stupid sometimes.

gnocchi

Nick E.

nookie

There is only one way to say this...

http://www.theoi.com/image/T24.5Nike.jpg

just call me mike.

I don't think people are stupid just because they pronounce words wrong. No-one told me Goethe was not pronouced Go-eth for instance - I had to find out the hard way.

World HQ of this place is based like 15 miles west of me.

I'm not proud.

it's pronounced as "mikey" everywhere over here in chicago, but when I visit family in mexico it's always as "mike", which I tend to prefer.

Would generally rhyme it with Mike, I think. "Oh but it's a Greek word so that's wrong" - yeah I know, except while the Greek is two syllables it isn't pronounced to rhyme with "Mikey" either, is it? And I don't fancy going into a sportswear shop and asking after their Nick Ehhh range.

(PS actually I've no idea how it's pronounced in modern Greek, as their vowels are kind of weird iirc, but I'd be surprised if it was either option on the poll)

What if you wear Adidas?

pronounce it to rhyme with mike.

"authentic" greek pron would be more liek neek-eh than nikey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJgPA9nGtTA

No-one told me Goethe was not pronouced Go-eth for instance - I had to find out the hard way.

Luckily, there is a Goethe street in Chicago, so I learned the proper pronunciation from the 36 bus.

Oh, this is nuts. I've only ever heard "nikey". Is this a regional thing??

wait is goethe pron'd tht way? thought it ws goat-ih

mike btw

gross-eh-ray btw also

its pronounced like 'mike' in a lot of rap tracks

brit-ish while we're at it

i've always said ny-key though D:

Only time I've heard Nike like Mike is in "Drink Nike" by Future of the Left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1iY5a1D3zs

wait is goethe pron'd tht way? thought it ws goat-ih

The recorded bus announcement says, "GERT-eh."

johann wolfgang von gert-eh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGcFyajKB4M

i only started hearing 'nikey' after nike airs dropped and figured it was some kind of messed-upcontraction. but no.

JW von Gertcha

No-one told me Goethe was not pronouced Go-eth for instance - I had to find out the hard way.

I pronounce this "gur-ta"

xp

Time for the Building Site joke, I think:

Foreman: "What is the difference between 'girder' and 'joist'?"

Irishman: "Sure, everyone knows that. Goethe wrote 'Faust' and Joyce wrote 'Ulysses'."

i pronounce it gooeh teh

Nyuh-kyuh

N O E, No e.

I pronounce "Goethe" like this: ˈgøːtə

That's how I spell it

Grrr-trrr
Hey-girl

notice that only british people pronounce it "mike"

They do?

everyone i know pronounces it and i am scotch.

pronounces it mike even.

Goethe

that's how i pronounce it! Win!

There's no other way. I feel for Ned Trifle who had to learn a wrong pronunciation "the hard way"!

brit-ish while we're at it

― •F•U•I•U•D• (cozwn), Thursday, July 9, 2009 2:34 PM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Pronounced as "mike" in China, or at least in Shanghai it is.

I found out Canadians pronounce it Maaa-zda when it's pronounced Mah-zda in the US. What about other places?

My experiences from US TV advertising is that Hyundai is pronounced 'Hondy' (or 'Hundy'?) in the US as opposed to Hi-oon-dye everwhere else. Correct?

My 1-syllable pronunciation of "fire" is like the Standard Canadian pronunciation of "five" from that site, except with an "r" instead of a "v".

lots of people pronounce it "fahr" + also lots of people just say "fire" as one syllable! (think of the word "firehouse" and how it might be said as two syllables or three)

xpost, yes

haha I think most of us change that one depending on how it fits with the words about it, but the combination of this and the You Can't Do That on Television reference is making me imagine a botched firing squad -- "READY ... AIM ... FI ... RE!"

It just doesn't seem natural to do the "eye" sound and the "err" sound without some separation such that it becomes a second syllable ...

How do you say "fiery"? Because that's a 2 syllable word for me.

"fire" = "fie-er"
"fiery" = "fie-ree"

(such a weird diphthong)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triphthong

fy-uh-ree or fy-ree ... syllabic break before the r no matter what.

I was specifically thinking of the long i but yeah, wikipedia OTM

this is also known as syllabic r/l -- iirc both approximants

you guys are trying to reinvent the entire field of linguistics in one thread
exhausting

I totally slide around with "fire" words depending on what's around them -- to be honest I can't think of any particular reason it should have two syllables any more than "pail" should have two syllables

Because you are speaking and not singing...?

at least it's contained in one thread, as opposed to going to dozens of other threads and posting about "how do you say 'x'" -- though that might be funny for a little while.

this is also known as syllabic r/l -- iirc both approximants

Don't get me started on 'dark l's!

nabisco it is because of these syllabic consonants
syllables require a vowel at the nucleus, but it is argued that retroflex r and l (both approximants, one lateral and one alveolar) are syllabic in that they bring with them a little vowel sound

However, in British English you wouldn't pronounce the 'r' in 'fire' anyway.

(unless there was a vowel after it, like in 'fire at will')

Lechera it would really be helpful to my mom if you could apply those rules to explaining the one-syllable name "Charles"!

Amanda, I love it when you talk geek. Even though it makes no sense to me at all.

See, I think that in American English, Charles is as much a two-syllable name as Laurel. The only difference is that one has clear syllable structure and the other is a little hairier. (Laurel, you are not the hairy one)

in the UK they may say Chollz, but we have the retroflex r (think about your tongue, flexing backwards) which needs a break, hence the little schwa that pops in there.

My vowels are sometimes a bit more caved in that that Std Cdn guy though... Watching Bill and Ted the other day, I wondered how many of my speech mannerism can be traced back via pop culture to some sort of 80s/90s Valspeak/stoner argot.

How about e.g. caving in the vowel of "good" to the point where it becomes something like a drawn-out "gid"? I do this when speaking informally sometimes. Avril does it too. Is it an Ottawa Valley thing, a generational thing,...?

xpost

weird - my dictionary has that in "fire" (which is how I say it) and "churl" (which is not quite how I say it) but at least considers there to be a single syllable "chärl" in the word "Charleston" (the given name is not listed)

^^^ that's why there is controversy (hehe) about the syllabic r/l

haha also I think this all means I have been misconceptualizing the word "pail"

there isn't some historical pail vs bucket argument is there?

Hmmm, I've got "snär(-ə)l" and "chär(-ə)l-stən" in my dictionary.

However: the Quebec city of Charlesbourg may be pronounced either "shärl-bur" or "chär(-ə)lz-bərg."

I just (mistakenly, I guess) thought of it as having similar syllable-smuggling potential to "fire" -- i.e., could be said both as "pāl" or, sometimes, more like a two-syllable "pay(-ə)ll"

xpost - if it's a dictionary controversy I will feel okay continuing with my previous plan of not finding one-syllable "fire" particularly "wrong"

I know I routinely make fun of the East Coasters for the way they pronounce the opening vowel sound of "orange," so I'm not going to bring that up (except I just did, hey-ooooo) -- but would you consider the word to be one syllable or two?

I'm asking in part because it determines what the most populous one-syllable city in the U.S. is: Orange CA or Flint MI.

― sad-ass Gen Y fantasist (jaymc), Wednesday, July 8, 2009 4:04 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

oh wow, I have come to find east-coast "aurange" awesome and charming, but one-syllable "ornge" is still fantastical to me

it's also a matter of the diphthongy /ey/ in pail

y/j is a palatal approximant -- it also adds a little "length" to the vowel and enables the word-final /l/ to have a little space and, in many dialects, its own syllable.

the answer, jaymc, is that it depends on

1) who's saying it
and
2) if you believe there is a "correct" way

i would go with flint, as it's unambiguous.

I'm pretty sure I occasionally pronounce "orange juice" as "orn-jooce."

i bet many people do that
economy is king

i can't believe you'd be prescriptive about "fire" having two syllables but not so much with "orange"!

(most of us do in fact say "oran juice" as if referring to the singer, I would imagine)

who me?
i'm not being prescriptive. i think the degree to which it becomes disyllabic depends on the speaker's dialect. i do tend to believe in the syllabic r/l, though.

[i]However, in British English you wouldn't pronounce the 'r' in 'fire' anyway.

― Teh Movable Object (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Friday, July 10, 2009 9:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

However, in British English you wouldn't pronounce the 'r' in 'fire' anyway.

― Teh Movable Object (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Friday, July 10, 2009 9:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

oops xpost

but this is nonsense, unless you mean british to mean english. Even then. I'm Scottish and pronounce it fi ur.

Yes, I did mean English as opposed to Scottish, I just said British English to make it clear to Americans that I didn't mean American English, and 'English English' seemed a bit of a strange thing to say.

(K, after saying the words aloud a few times, I do make more of a slight separation in "fire" than in "five", for certain.)

i say the words mirror and horror as only one syllable

sb

Ugh, that Scarlett Johannsen ad for 'mirror shine' lipgloss over here bugged me so much.. MEEER SHINE!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

fair results

I just phoned the Nike switchboard in the UK and the automated voice recording pronounced it to rhyme with 'Mike'. 107 people = RONG.

damn even the limeys who work for nike cant get it right

lol @ UK switchboard