This tag is for questions about the sounds, intonation, and stress of how words are uttered or produced.
14
votes
4answers
2k views
How did the Australian accent come about?
Can anybody tell me how the Australian accent came about?
It seems strange to me that it is not more like an English accent taking into account that the first and the majority of settlers were ...
2
votes
3answers
577 views
How should one pronounce the “rofl” in “roflstomp” or “roflcopter”?
"ROFL" stands for rolling on the floor laughing but has been mushed into other words with their own meanings. Two examples:
Ouch, that was a roflstomp.
I'm on a roflcopter!
While these are ...
5
votes
6answers
1k views
Is misplaced emphasis a form of mispronunciation?
I was speaking with someone today and he brought up the TV show "South Park", and he emphasized the "Park" whereas most people (and the show itself, I believe) emphasize the word "South". This got me ...
-5
votes
2answers
262 views
Does the word “amen” have anything to do with men? Which is the correct pronunciation?
I don't understand how the word amen was coined by breaking it down to what I presume to be its constituents, a- and men. It seems to be a phrase of affirmation — I don't see what men has ...
2
votes
3answers
2k views
How do I pronounce “s's” and “s'”? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicates:
What is the correct possessive for nouns ending in s?
Pronouncing possessive words that already end in s
How do I pronounce possessives that end with the awkward ...
12
votes
3answers
7k views
How do you pronounce “melee”?
I've heard meelee, meyley (maylay), and mehlay. Is there any "correct" way to pronounce it in the U.S.?
5
votes
2answers
461 views
Pronunciation of GUI in British English
I've heard a lot of Americans pronounce abbreviations like GUI as goo-ey. Is this the same with British English, or is it more common to spell out the word, like gee-you-eye?
4
votes
6answers
836 views
How to pronounce and orally spell <3?
It's now an entry in OED, I hear. Anybody know what the actual OED entry says?
3
votes
2answers
10k views
What's the correct pronunciation of “epitome”: “Epi-tome” or “Epi-tuh-mi”?
A friend said that epitome is pronounced as epi-tuh-mi and not epi-tome (with the tome like home).
Who is right? Also, is the pronunciation purely dependent on the region where you learnt English?
13
votes
4answers
520 views
Pronunciation of trailing “i” in Latin-derived words
Some pronounce the trailing "i" in Latin-derived words (e.g., "Gemini") as a long "e" and others pronounce it as a long "i." I was taught the long "e," but is this mere preference or is there a firm ...
5
votes
5answers
965 views
How do you pronounce the H in “an historian”?
A lot of people I know argue that you should use the article "an" before words such as "historian", "history", "hotel", "hospital", "heretic". I don't want to debate whether or not this is correct or ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
Why is “door” pronounced with an “o” sound and not a “u”?
Why is door pronounced as in 'o' not as in 'u' ?
4
votes
2answers
666 views
How do you pronounce “but”?
In which context do you use the stressed bʌt and when do you use the unstressed bət? How often is that?
If you know about the website www.forvo.com, I think it's a shortcoming that speakers use only ...
3
votes
4answers
534 views
Where is the stress in the word “commenting”?
Where is the stress placed in the word commenting? Is it on the first or the second syllable? How do you pronounce it?
1
vote
3answers
157 views
Pronunciation of “theodicy”
I am confused: Please listen to the audio file from google here
This can't be right, can it?
9
votes
4answers
301 views
How is “cf.” to be pronounced?
The meaning of cf. has already been addressed in this question, but not the right way to pronounce or translate it when reading aloud as has been done for i.e. and e.g. in this question.
Can anyone ...
4
votes
6answers
10k views
“Zoe” or “Zoë”: which is the correct spelling?
I have a relation who has named their child Zoe, on the grounds that “in English we don’t use the dots”, but they pronounce it like the second version.
Of course I don’t want to argue that’s not the ...
5
votes
1answer
2k views
Is itinery/itinary an acceptable pronunciation of “itinerary”?
There are enough Google results with the misspelling above to suggest I'm not the only person who pronounces itinerary incorrectly.
So is this common or even acceptable to pronounce it in this way?
...
10
votes
1answer
5k views
Why is the “a” in “cocoa” silent?
Not being a native speaker of English, one of those words that tripped me up is “cocoa”. Besides having its vowels inverted from “cacao”; it also is pronounced exactly the same as “coco”, whereas ...
4
votes
4answers
568 views
Where is “pejorative” pronounced “ ˈpejəˌrātiv”?
Upon looking up the word pejorative, I noticed two rather distinct pronunciations:
pəˈjôrətiv
ˈpejəˌrātiv
I naturally assumed the first (which is apparently the more common), but was wondering ...
26
votes
6answers
1k views
Pronunciation of the English alphabet
Why are there inconsistencies in the pronunciation of the consonants of the alphabet? For example: 'b' is pronounced like 'bee' but 'm' is pronounced as 'em' rather than 'me'. The pronunciation of 'h' ...
4
votes
2answers
726 views
Are any of the t-glottolization, th-fronting, h-dropping, etc. in English a phonological complex?
Wikipedia gives the following, with plenty others ommitted by me, as some of the features of Cockney English:
T-glottalisation: Use of the glottal stop as an allophone of /t/ in various ...
8
votes
7answers
1k views
In what dialects does “often” rhyme with “soften”?
I believe in most English dialects soften is pronounced without a t sound. In some dialects, often is similar, but in others a t sound is quite evident in often.
I'm interested not only in which ...
14
votes
3answers
548 views
Why is “Chop Gate” pronounced so strangely?
I was passing through the hamlet of Chop Gate (in North Yorkshire) the other day, and heard it referred to as "chop yat" (tʃɒp yæt). This source here concurs with that pronunciation.
Does anyone know ...
11
votes
8answers
6k views
What is the correct pronunciation of the word “solder”?
I have been listening to a podcast where the host pronounces the word solder as "sodder" or "sod-der", even "saw-der". Same thing happened when the lecturer of one of my EE classes pronounced the word ...
4
votes
3answers
310 views
What is the difference (in terms of usage and connotation) between “loath” and “loathe”?
I'm having difficulty in understanding the differences in usage (and understanding which one is used from pronunciation/context) between "loathe" and "loath" - could anyone help clarify it ?
1
vote
3answers
1k views
Different ways to pronounce “augh”
In the word laugh, it is pronounced "aff".
In the word naught, it is pronounced "aw".
Are there any other ways to pronounce "augh"?
Bonus points for etymology explaining from where these ...
2
votes
1answer
233 views
IPA pronunciation of 'Bazinga'
You might be familiar with the tv-series the Big Bang Theory. Sheldon, one of the main characters, often says "bazinga". How would I write this in IPA? This is what I have, does that make sense?
...
8
votes
6answers
2k views
Difference in pronunciation between “your” and “you're”?
I'm a native English speaker (Texas counts, I suppose), and I pronounce "your" to rhyme with "core", and "you're" to rhyme with "cure". Is it just me or did I pick this up somewhere?
4
votes
5answers
637 views
Words starting with a 'gw' sound
There seems to be only a few words starting with the 'gw' sound, though the only ones I can think of are proper nouns, for example, Gwyneth. Are there any non-name words starting with a 'gw'? Is there ...
6
votes
2answers
1k views
Why is most North American speech rhotic?
Most North American speech is rhotic—why is that? Does it come from the early English settlers or perhaps from the Irish settlers?
11
votes
2answers
457 views
Sources say English was rhotic in the 17th century — how do they know that?
Sources say English was rhotic in most places in the 17th century. How do they know that? Obviously, we don't have any samples of recorded speech from that time.
3
votes
1answer
465 views
What is the origin in a strong Scouse accent of the phoneme /x/ or sometimes /kx/?
What is the origin in a strong Scouse accent of the phoneme /k/ in all positions of a word except the beginning being realised as /x/ or sometimes /kx/?
Has this charateristic been taken from a ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
Does anybody pronounce the word “pillow” as “pellow”?
My girlfriend giggles whenever I say it, and I never realized that I said it differently then anyone else. But now that I am listening...NOBODY says pellow? They all say pillow. I've listened to my ...
8
votes
2answers
5k views
How to pronounce “halcyon”?
I grew up thinking this word was pronounced HALK-YON, having learned it from books and never hearing someone speak it. I recently heard somebody mention it for the first time, and they pronounced it ...
4
votes
3answers
1k views
Words whose pronunciation remains the same with the last four letters removed
A friend told me that the English word queue is the only word whose pronunciation remains the same when the last four letters are removed.
I tried to think of others, but just couldn't. However, I ...
1
vote
0answers
154 views
Pronunciation of “the” [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What is the pronunciation of “the”?
I've noticed that the word the is not always pronounced in the same way depending on the sound of the next word. I think ...
4
votes
3answers
2k views
“Ph” for the /f/ sound; Is Old England responsible for this swap?
Is old England responsible for creating the /f/ sound from ph, as in Philip, Pharoah, Physics, Sophia, etc? Many European countries keep the f for all of their /f/-sounding letters, as in Sofia and ...
4
votes
6answers
817 views
How do I say “WWI” out loud?
I know it's written WWI, but when I am speaking should I say "World War One" or "World War First" or "First World War"?
3
votes
3answers
632 views
In the movie “Meet the Fockers” does the word “Focker” really sound different?
In the movie "Meet the Fockers" does the word "Focker" sound really different from the four-letter word? I don't hear any difference. Do all the actors pronounce this word really differently from ...
3
votes
2answers
742 views
Why is “sauté” spelled with an accent and “repartee” not?
Why are these words spelled differently? They have the same sound at the end, right?
11
votes
4answers
981 views
Reading out numbers in English
What are the accepted guidelines for reading out numbers in English?
For example, should 1351 be read out as "one thousand and three hundred and fifty one", or should the "and"s be removed ...
8
votes
2answers
4k views
Why is “albeit” pronounced the way it is?
I've previously (and am now embarrassed because of this) pronounced this word "ahl-bite" and now realize it is pronounced "ahl-bee-it." Why is it pronounced like this, and not the way I previously ...
6
votes
0answers
336 views
Pronouncing “00's” (as in 2000's) [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What is the name of the first decade in a century?
When talking about decades in the 20th century, it is customary to refer to them using only the last two digits. For ...
2
votes
1answer
695 views
What is the difference between American and British pronunciations of “world” and “girl”?
I can definitely hear a distinct difference but I am not sure if it is from the long vowel or from the "r".
4
votes
5answers
799 views
Difference in pronunciation between 'warship' and 'worship'?
I basically came these words across together in a text, and I was wondering whether or not they are pronounced the same way. 'War' is actually pronounced as 'wor', so I'm not entirely sure.
...
3
votes
7answers
926 views
How do you pronounce “what did you” in “So what did you dream about?” and other similar questions?
Tina: I had a strange dream last night.
Jack: Well, dreams are always strange. I've never had an absolutely "normal" dream. So what did you dream about?
Tina: I dreamed about a skyscraper ...
6
votes
5answers
2k views
How to pronounce to differ spatial from special?
It always bugged me that I do not know how to differentiate "spatial" from "special". I would just say "space" to be clear when "spatial" is the grammatically correct choice. Are the standard ...
3
votes
4answers
527 views
What loan-words keep their native pronunciation?
Being a non-native English speaker I recently discovered that for some words you don't use English pronunciation. For instance you seem to be omitting the l's when saying tortilla.
Yet this isn't ...
26
votes
5answers
5k views
Should the number “0” be pronounced “zero” or “oh”?
I have often heard people say 101, as one-zero-one, and also as one-oh-one. Which is correct, and why? Does the difference between British English and American English have to do something with it?
