427
votes
Accepted
Are "whores" and "horse" homophones?
In most varieties of English, these two words are not homophones. But there is an interesting story about why this is so.
In English the alveolar fricatives /s/ and /z/ are contrastive. Notionally, ...
- 47.7k
52
votes
What is the proper way to say “Clinton”?
The English language has incredibly many different regional accents, leading to the same words being pronounced differently by different people, sometimes in different places and other times in the ...
- 136k
52
votes
Why does "signature" have a "g" sound but "sign" doesn't?
Short answer:
When the <gn> comes word-initially or word-finally, the /g/ often gets removed.
However, in word-medial position, the /g/ is sometimes pronounced when it's followed by a vowel (...
- 16.7k
44
votes
Accepted
Word that sounds like "metal" but means "grit", "tenacity", and "perseverance"
Mettle
Defined by Oxford Dictionaries as:
a person's ability to cope well with difficulties; spirit and resilience.
It is commonly seen in the phrase:
(put someone) on their mettle
meaning,
(of a ...
- 7,841
44
votes
Accepted
What is the P in 'nope' called?
Brief answer:
Nope is a variant of no (exclamation), usually pronounced as [nəʊp̚] (AmE [noʊp̚].
Merriam Webster says its first known use dates back to 1888; however, according to Wikitionary, it was ...
- 16.7k
42
votes
Is the T in ‘mistook’ pronounced the same as the T in ‘mistake’ is?
Phonemically, both "took" and "mistook" use /t/, not /d/ or /ɾ/ (the d-like "intervocalic tap" you hear in "butter" or "ladder" in certain dialects).
...
- 1,344
38
votes
Accepted
Why is "archaic" pronounced uniquely? Is the sequence -ɪɪ- only found in this word?
The standard pronunciation in British English is really /ɑːˈkeɪ ik/ (Longman Pronunciation Dictionary), and there is no alternative. The splitting of the digraph into two phonemes is understandable as ...
- 23.3k
37
votes
Why is /sɪ/ pronounced differently in "six" /sɪks/ and "sit" /sɪt/?
TL;DR:
You’re right that six and sit have ever so slightly different phonetics,
but those all tally to the same underlying phoneme /ɪ/
in the minds of us native speakers. Your challenge is to learn ...
- 136k
35
votes
Psychology of diphthongs
TL;DR
All tense monophthongs in English become non-phonemic, phonetic-only diphthongs with weak off-glides in most speakers and contexts. Minor phonologic effects like this are part of getting an ...
- 136k
34
votes
Why is the zh (ʒ) sound so infrequent in English?
I would say it is a combination of two factors that show up separately in other sounds with token frequency on the low end.
/ʒ/ never developed in vocabulary inherited from Proto-Germanic
English is ...
- 83.7k
30
votes
Accepted
"Extra W" sound in words
This is a so-called “linking semivowel”. It’s typically not perceived as being as strong a sound as “original” syllable-initial /w/, so some linguists don’t like to transcribe it (see this blog post ...
- 83.7k
30
votes
Spicket or spigot?
spicket
Definition of spicket
chiefly South & Midland [Middle USA] : spigot
(Merriam Webster)
Do you use "spigot" or "spicket" to refer to a faucet or tap that water comes out of?
...
- 30.4k
28
votes
Accepted
Is there such a thing as Intrusive-L (as opposed to Intrusive-R)?
Short answer
Yes, there are varieties of English that use linking and intrusive l in a similar way to how other non-rhotic varieties use linking and intrusive r.
spa /spa:/
is /ɪz/
the spa is /ðə ...
- 47.7k
28
votes
Why is Siobhan pronounced with a /v/ sound in English?
I don’t know the specific history of this particular name, but all the points you raise have influenced pronunciation of Irish loanwords to some extent.
If we start diachronically, lenition in Old ...
- 32.8k
24
votes
How shall the word "biology" be interpreted, if no English word can start with two stressed syllables?
"No English word can start with two stressed syllables" is just false, unless you define "stressed syllable" as "primary-stressed syllable", in which case it is trivially ...
- 83.7k
23
votes
Accepted
Is "the" ever pronounced "knee"?
TL;DR:
Yes. Surprisingly, perhaps, the word the is sometimes pronounced [ni] "knee". This requires two processes. The first is phonological and relates to the changing to /ði/ when followed ...
- 47.7k
23
votes
Accepted
How many syllables do these rules say that ‘every’ has?
No fixed answers
Your problem with every is that many but hardly all words whose pronunciations end in [ɹi] or [ɹiz] have a variable number of syllables depending on how reduced the vowel sound ...
- 136k
22
votes
Do "cook the" and "cooked the" get pronounced differently?
The pronunciation can vary with the English accent of the speaker. While many may pronounce "cook" and "cooked" followed by "the" in the same manner, as an EN_AU speaker, ...
- 1,045
21
votes
What is /iə/ in English?
Take, for example, the word beer. Here we would use the transcription /bɪə/ in Southern Standard British English (SSBE). Notice that this word has two phonemes, the consonant /b/ and the vowel /ɪə/. ...
- 47.7k
21
votes
Accepted
Why are dictionary transcriptions contradictory for the phonetic representation of oranges?
A non-negotiable phonological rule of all standard Englishes inserts a vowel (either /ə/ or /ɪ/, depending on the variety of English) between base-final sibilant consonants and the plural morpheme /z/....
- 47.7k
21
votes
Is the T in ‘mistook’ pronounced the same as the T in ‘mistake’ is?
"mis + took", both are pronounced the same.
Mistake:
/mɪˈsteɪk/
Mistook:
/mɪˈstʊk/
Both have the "st" sound, there is no "d" when pronouncing either of these words.
- 1,161
20
votes
Why is Siobhan pronounced with a /v/ sound in English?
Irish has regional accents. You’ve been misled by one of them.
The pronunciation you cite, /ʃəwaːn̪ˠ/ is not definitive. Rendering á as /aː/ or even /a/ is one of the tell-tale characteristics of ...
- 2,497
19
votes
How many syllables do these rules say that ‘every’ has?
Short answer:
Because of a phonological process know as compression, every can be said with either 2 or 3 syllables. This happens to coincide with the "written method" described (see full ...
- 47.7k
17
votes
Why do some words with similar meanings sound similar as well?
Gleaming, glittering, glinting, glimmering, glisten etc., sound similar and have closely related meanings because they share the same phonaestheme gl-.
Repugnant, repulsive, reprehend, repent, reprove ...
- 16.7k
16
votes
Accepted
Why did the F of "sneeze" and "snore" change to an S in English history?
Edwin Ashworth's answer is basically right, but I'm going to shed some light on its linguistics.
Every language has a unique set of rules that govern the permissible sequences of sounds (which sounds ...
- 16.7k
16
votes
Why is "archaic" pronounced uniquely? Is the sequence -ɪɪ- only found in this word?
In English, there's a phoneme commonly called "long A" (because it evolved from what used to be a lengthened /a:/). This part's pretty uncontroversial: it's the phoneme in the middle of &...
- 1,150
16
votes
Accepted
Why is there a flap allophone of /t/ but not of /k/ or /p/?
I'm going to propose that this phenomenon has nothing to do with voiceless stops. I think it's worth pointing out that [ɾ] is an allophone of the voiced /d/ in at least as many accents as [ɾ] is an ...
- 2,532
16
votes
Do "cook the" and "cooked the" get pronounced differently?
John Lawler in a comment wrote:
In practice, there is no difference in pronunciation and the addressee is expected to infer the tense, if necessary. Tense is not very important in English (there's ...
- 136k
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