Questions tagged [pronunciation-vs-spelling]
Questions about putative differences between spelling and pronunciation.
569
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Pronunciation difference b/w Python and Pyramid
Why is "Python" pronounced differently than "Pyramid"? Is there a logic behind why the "PY" is pronounced differently in both?
-1
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1
answer
62
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Do spell and pronounce mean the same? [closed]
I am seeing many reels on Instagram where they ask a person "Can you spell Y, E, S". The person says "Yes". Then they ask him "Can you spell E, Y, E, S". The person says &...
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21
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5
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When someone spells out letters in dialogue, should they be capitalized? "P-L-E-A-S-E" vs. "p-l-e-a-s-e"
I'm not finding the answer to this on the internet after searching.
When writing dialogue, do you use capital letters to spell out words?
Jamie said, "I said P-L-E-A-S-E please, and don't you ...
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0
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1
answer
76
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What is a word describing when someone pronounces a word according to how it's spelled, ignoring silent letters? [duplicate]
Phonetic spelling is when one spells a word according to how it is pronounced (e.g.; knight => nite).
What word would be used to describe the pronunciation of a word based on how it is spelled, ...
4
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2
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173
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Was the o in "go" and oe in "toe" pronounced differently in early 19th century Gloucestershire English?
No modern dialect makes the <o> and <oe> distinction, but when reading Medhurst's Hokkien dictionary of 1832 i came across (page 34)
Furthermore, <o> seems to be a monophthong and &...
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0
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28
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Why do we say some initialisms and acronyms as words but not others? [duplicate]
Initialisms and acronyms with vowels can be said as single words. Is there any coherent pattern or convention determining the choice? VIP? LOL? DIY? WAG? For example?
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3
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1
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169
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Why did English take the "mix pronunciations and spellings" route instead of one rule route like French, or separate languages/dialects like Spanish? [closed]
Like the multiple pronunciations of "ough" or different spellings for the same sounds in English I've read come from mixing different dialects into one language. Whereas with French, they ...
user485570
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3
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In 18th century England, was "eat" the past tense of "eat" and how was it pronounced?
In Boswell's London Journal (1762-3), the author expresses the past tense of the verb eat with the same spelling:
I sat in till between four and five. I then went to Holborn, to a cheesemonger's, and ...
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2
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106
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Is hilarious pronounced /hɪˈlɛriəs/?
For the word hilarious, the pronunciation transcription in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary is /hɪˈlɛriəs/ but if I click on the speaker icon, I hear /həˈlɛriəs/. Am I listening to it wrong or ...
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Is there an unambiguous grapheme for /aʊ/? [closed]
When reading a book I encountered the town/locality "Slough", which got me thinking about how it's one of many towns in Britain that are spelled confusingly (I'm looking at you Gloucester!). ...
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0
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111
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How to explain to a five year old why certain words are spelled this way [closed]
My five-year-old is learning phonics. I give him spelling test time to time. I asked him to spell "Hair" and he spelled it as "Her" & then I told him this is incorrect spelling....
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0
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1
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"bus" and "cut" pronounciations? [duplicate]
So there are words that use "bus" but where this group of letters is pronounced differently:
busy - "bizzy"
bus/bust - "bas/bast"
Case 2: Similarly with "cut" ...
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1
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1
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50
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How can the difference between the chemistry words of valence and valency be described as a spelling difference when it makes them sound so different?
How can the difference between the chemistry words of valence and valency be described as a spelling difference when it makes them sound so different?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valence_(chemistry)
...
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3
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646
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Which English is spoken in continental Europe? British, American , or its own version
Many Europeans speak English. What version is this English? is it British, American or its own continental English? If it's continental English which does it most closely resemble, British or American,...
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1
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517
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Why is 'e' pronounced like 'a' in some words?
I'm not a native English speaker and I have noticed that 'e' in some words are pronounced like 'a' by native speakers sometimes. For example, "Texas" sounds like "Taxes", or "...
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12
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1
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Why do we pronounce pretty like /ˈprɪtɪ/?
Why do we pronounce pretty like /ˈprɪtɪ/ while according to the rule it must be [ˈpretɪ]?
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21
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5
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Is the D in words like Fridge and Bridge silent?
The other day, I was discussing the pronunciation of fridge with friends on a social media group. They insisted that the d in fridge is completely silent. Is that so? I have always said it with a ...
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1
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What is the origin of several pronunciations of "the"?
Courtesy links: https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/123348/what-is-the-correct-pronunciation-of-the
What is the pronunciation of "the"?
The has two pronunciations: "thuh" /ðə/ ...
4
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3
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642
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Pronunciation of Edinburgh
Why is the Scottish capital Edinburgh pronounced as Edinbruh?
It is not clear to me why the letter "u" is silent, so that the "b" is followed directly by the "r". Then a ...
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2
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Why are "just" and "justice" written with a "j", while "language" is written with a "g", when they all come from Latin?
The word "language" comes from Latin and is written with a "g". The adjective "just" and its noun form "justice" also come from Latin. These are the only words ...
4
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1
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Why is 'u' in "study" short if the 'u' in "student" is long?
Why is 'u' in "study" short if the 'u' in "student" is long? Both come from Latin "studere", right? In Latin, the 'u' in "studere" is short.
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0
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Is this pronunciation transcript understandable for people who know British English?
I wonder how to write down the pronunciation of words in English without using IPA. Sometimes on the internet I have seen something like this:
It is pronounced like uh-aw-to-muh-tuh
Or
It is ...
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0
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0
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350
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Phonetic symbol - superscript h in Which [duplicate]
Q1) What is the meaning of the small h (superscript h) in the phonetic symbols of which shown in Collins?
ʰwɪ̠tʃ
the small h means 'complete silence' (= just ignore h)
the small h means 'pronounce ...
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1
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1
answer
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When is the "t" pronounced in won’t, don’t, can’t?
I am a speaker of Canadian English. I have noticed that when people pronounce won’t, don’t, and can’t, often when speaking normally, they don’t release the “t”, as in connected speech. The standard ...
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5
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1
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599
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Pronunciation: /ɪ/ becomes /ə/ in "William" or "Wilkinson"?
I sometimes hear words like "Willam" or "Wilkinson" pronounced like /'wəl-jəm/ or /'wəɫ̩-kən-sən/, rather than /'wɪɫ̩-jəm/ or /'wɪɫ̩-kən-sən/. In other words, the /wɪɫ̩/ cluster is ...
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2
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816
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Why is Chaos pronounced with K not like SH? [closed]
Chaos one of the hardest words for me to remember how to type, the reason mostly how it is spelled is not (at least in my mind) how it should be written.
Do I miss something related to 'CH' ...
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1
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Should we pronounce "Macedonia" with a hard k?
I know that many words loaned from Greek to English have gone through a transition from a hard-k kappa to a soft sibilant sound. For example, English "cybernetics" comes from Greek "...
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3
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1
answer
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“One syllable” words ending in -re
I’m an American (in upper Midwest) teaching my child about one-syllable words ending in Silent E, such as kite, which makes gives first vowel a long vowel sound. You might know these as VCe syllables (...
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0
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1
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151
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How to accent the 'a'/second syllable in Oscar?
If you had a character (male) called Oscar but the emphasis was on the second syllable how would you write that? With a macron on the a?
For example, pronounced Oscarr or Oscaar (with the a sound from ...
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3
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2
answers
301
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How can “Harold” and “Herald” ever sound the same?
I was reading a book¹ recently where the main protagonist is fixated
on homonyms and has rules that proper nouns are not homonyms and
gives Harold and herald as an example of words that sound the
same ...
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4
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1
answer
462
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How did English come to use a writing system which makes spelling it so hard?
Alphabetic writing systems use graphemes to represent
phonemes. But in their “Psychology of Reading”
chapter
of 2003’s Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science,
researchers Simon Garrod and Meredyth Daneman
...
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0
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1
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550
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Did you initially thought "comparable" was pronounced as "com-pair-able"? [duplicate]
And were you surprised to learn it pronounced as "com-pra-ble"?
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1
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0
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Why appear, appearance are spelled with "ea", but apparent, apparently are spelled with "a"? [closed]
For the word appear, the verb and noun are spelled with "ea", but the adverb and adjective are spelled with "a", why do they have different vowels given that they have the same ...
3
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1
answer
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Why are "mobile" and "automobile" pronounced differently?
I just came across the words and then I looked them both up in the dictionary app, which shows the word "mobile" pronounces as /'məʊbaɪl/, whereas the other word-"automobile", ...
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4
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How do you tell a spelling mistake from a grammar mistake? [duplicate]
How do you tell a spelling mistake from a grammar mistake? For example:
Your the best.
This iz the end.
I likes music.
She preatend to be asleep.
One method is to read the erroneous sentence aloud (...
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1
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Why is "soccer" pronounced with a hard "c"?
I have seen that in "soccer", the 'c' is pronounced as 'k', though it is followed by 'e'. The word "soccer" comes from "(As)soc(iation football) + -er". But even in "...
1
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2
answers
419
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Why the "oo" in "noon" is pronounced sounding like "you" while the word "moon" isn't? [closed]
I was taught to pronounce the oo in either afternoon or noon as /u:/ ~~the oo in nook~~ until I found some native speakers pronounce the noon sounding like new-n (videos). But the AmE IPA in the ...
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1
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Does English allow /eɪʃ/ in the end of a syllable (in the same syllable)?
The sound /ʃ/ is almost always spelled with more than one letter i.e. with a digraph unlike, say, /p/ which is spelled with a single letter (pan, pen, pie). I have noticed a particular pattern: vowels ...
user387044
0
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1
answer
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How would you write the word /ˈtɪə.rɒn/? [closed]
I'm writing a book and made a word called /ˈtɪə.rɒn/ (reading it like TEARdrop + iRON, or something like TEARON). The story is supposed to be medieval fantasy and I'm not a native speaker so I'm not ...
1
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1
answer
228
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How was ‘only’ (‘onely’) pronounced in early modern English?
I have noticed in some older English literature, that ‘only’ is written ‘onely’. Was this merely an example of historical spelling, or does it reveal an earlier pronunciation not as modern /ˈəʊnlɪ/, ...
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6
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2
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Why does the word ‘suffix’ have a double ‘ff’ while ‘prefix’ has a single ‘f’?
While writing the word ‘suffix’, I stopped to do a spellcheck as a result of the ‘ff’. I did not do so with the word ‘prefix’ as I was comfortable with the ‘pre’ and ‘fix’. I looked up ‘ff’ vs. ‘f’ ...
user414952
1
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0
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The "Elephant and Apple" - Phonetical Spelling of NY(C) with normal letters [closed]
Some toponyms change over time:
Be it by pronunciation (Los Angeles, New Orleans) or by changing the wording/spelling to either make more sense to the speaker (the London district "Elephant and ...
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1
answer
143
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Is this a bet or a dare? [closed]
If i tell a friend to climb a car an he get’s 2 euro if he does this. Is this than a bet or a dare?
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4
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Is there a distinction between “victuals” and “vittles” that exists in writing but not in speech?
As I set out on this project I noticed that there are already several questions at EL&U referring to the words here in question. But what can I do?
In Merriam-Webster’s entry for victuals, it is ...
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1
answer
378
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Why does "broad" not rhyme with "boat"?
The word "broad" is pronounced /brɔːd/ (some US accents: /brɑːd/) instead of */brəʊd/. The spelling -OA- somehow suggests that these words are closely related and/or were pronounced the same ...
user387044
2
votes
1
answer
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Why is the P silent in "coup" and "corps"?
Corps = /kɔː(r)/: the PS is silent
Coup = /kuː/: the P is silent
Corps
Etymology Dictionary says "from French corps d'armée (16c.), which apparently was picked up in English during Marlborough's ...
user387044
2
votes
1
answer
161
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Why "admit" with T but "admissible" with SS? [duplicate]
I have noticed that when the suffix -ible is added to "admit", it becomes "admissible" rather than "admittible".
There are few other examples:
"omit" = "...
user387044
2
votes
0
answers
183
views
Words Starting With the Vowel "I" [closed]
The word of the day in Merriam-Webster's daily post was "Itinerant."
Words that start with the letter "I" most often have a short, or informally, a soft vowel sound, if two ...
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6
votes
2
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Why did some English verbs lose nasal endings?
I saw this ending in many words of Old English origin where a word has -an in Old English but then lost in Modern English.
Examples: habban, climban, sceþþan, singan, offrian etc.
I noticed another ...
user387044
1
vote
1
answer
284
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Why g in gel sounds as j
Gel and jel are homophones,
but why g sounds as j in that case (and similar words as gelatin)?
Is it related to word origin?
Borrowed from French gélatine (“jelly, gel”), from Italian gelatina (“...
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