13
votes
Accepted
Does any dialect merge "cold" and "culled"?
Yes. Wikipedia calls it the hull-hole merger and says that some North American speakers have it. Unfortunately, it doesn't narrow it down to any specific regions.
This web page gives anecdotal ...
- 81.2k
9
votes
Accepted
Why does “revocable” have first-syllable stress?
Words ending in -able follow multiple pronunciation patterns
This is part of the more general phenomenon that English has many pairs of affixes or word parts that mean the same thing but have ...
- 73.7k
6
votes
Accepted
What happens to 'l' in between words as in "Neal Evans"?
In most English accents, there are two l-sounds: clear and dark. The dark l is used before a consonant (e.g. "milk", "pull down") or before a pause (e.g. just "pull"). ...
- 4,528
4
votes
What accent can I put on "u" to make it sound like "you"?
The problem you have is that readers pronounce a strange name the way they think it should be pronounced. No amount of accents will fix that.
Accents are pretty meaningless to the average English ...
- 28.6k
3
votes
Accepted
Example word that is a homograph and preposition
Pace
Verb, /peɪs/, meaning "walk at a steady and consistent speed". (Also a noun with a related meaning).
Preposition, /ˈpɑˌtʃeɪ/, meaning "With due respect to (someone or their opinion)...
- 4,526
2
votes
What accent can I put on "u" to make it sound like "you"?
If you want the unfamiliar (and arguably non-English) name Bunar to be pronounced /bju:/ then one way is to mimic the Welsh name Beuno. Spell your name Beunar; the /bju:/ first syllable actually makes ...
- 94.7k
2
votes
How do you pronounce RND (Research and Development)?
There was one TV Episode where Homer J Simpson wants to know what J stands for. He eventually gets to know that J was Jay.
I think he says something like this : "I will no longer be called Homer ...
- 3,922
1
vote
Accepted
What accent can I put on "u" to make it sound like "you"?
As a native English speaker, I would pronounce the name as you intended it to be pronounced (buːnə). With other languages, the pronuciation of vowel is denoted by accents over vowels, but English ...
- 473
1
vote
Example word that is a homograph and preposition
Aside from strong and weak forms of prepositions (at /æt/–/ət/, for /fɔːʳ/–/fəʳ/, etc.), absent is pronounced /ˈæbsᵊnt/ when it's an adjective or preposition and /æbˈsɛnt/ when it's a verb.
- 1,434
1
vote
Example word that is a homograph and preposition
One preposition with a difference in pronunciation between a stressed and unstressed version is 'for'. At a glance, it would seem that at the end of a sentence, it would always be stressed, whereas ...
- 6,152
1
vote
Accepted
How do you connect ending of word "Didn't" , with word "Do"?
In a comment, John Lawler said:
The /t/ goes first, and the /n/ becomes syllabic and the second /d/ is tapped, so you wind up saying "did'n'do" (/'dɪɾṇ'du/).
Bold Ben said:
In Received ...
1
vote
How do you connect ending of word "Didn't" , with word "Do"?
There's a thing I've heard from many people who live in the UK -- it's kind of like a glottal stop, but it's at the end of a word.
I've also heard this in Danish -- stronger and more frequently.
It's ...
- 20.6k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible