142
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What is this famous example of the absurdity of English spelling?
Ghoti (/fɪʃ/)
This fallacy arises from the incorrect application of the rules linking orthography to phonology1, resulting in an argument that 'ghoti' should be pronounced similarly to 'fish':
gh, ...
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45
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What is this famous example of the absurdity of English spelling?
Another is ghoughphtheightteeau, which is pronounced potato.
Spacing it out: gh ough phth eigh tte eau
gh for P as in Hiccough
ough for O as in Dough
phth for T as in Phthisis
eigh for A as in ...
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21
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What are pronunciation options for letter "E" in the word "Enum" (short for "Enumeration")?
Using /ə/ or /æ/ for enum (or for enumerate, enumerated, enumeration) is incorrect
Wiktionary’s cited /ˈinʌm/ is indeed what native English speaking programmers broadly say phonemically, although in a ...
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21
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What are pronunciation options for letter "E" in the word "Enum" (short for "Enumeration")?
A helpful resource for hearing how English speakers pronounce things is Youglish. You can listen to its examples for enum to confirm that, as tchrist says, the first syllable is generally pronounced ...
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20
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What is this famous example of the absurdity of English spelling?
"Ghoti" is typically attributed to George Bernard Shaw, the 'relatively well known author' (I am sure he would have objected to the "relatively"!). Wikipedia says:
The first confirmed use of the ...
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9
votes
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Why is "Theresa" pronounced with the plosive /t/?
There are a number of other words or names where "th" corresponds to /t/. Uwe listed some in a comment: Thomas, Thames, Thailand, thyme.
The digraph "th" was originally used in Latin to transliterate ...
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9
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How to pronounce -on endings?
To reduce or not to reduce?
You’ve asked whether there’s any rhyme or reason to how we pronounce a word ending in -on. There is, yes, a bit of that here and there. Mostly it’s about stress.
First let’...
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6
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Two 'x's in "anti-vaxxer"
Just to highlight how unusual the [xx] spelling is, the Dictionary of the British English Spelling System (Greg Brooks, 2015) has this to say about the double-letter [xx] in English:
Doubled letter: (...
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6
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Is there a term for the letter T not being pronounced when at the end of a word?
John Lawler mentioned the term "unreleased" in a comment. John Wells has a blog post saying he prefers the term "no audible release". Both terms have been used in linguistics to ...
- 84.5k
6
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How to pronounce -est endings
The suffix -est is traditionally pronounced /ɪst/ in standard Southern British English, but it is being replaced by /əst/. See Lindsey (2019: 39–40).
North American English doesn't have the contrast ...
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5
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Accepted
Is "of" pronounced as "ov"?
British English
The word of has a strong form, /ɒv/. This has the same vowel we hear in the word lot, /lɒt/. This form of the word ends with a 'v' sound.
We use the strong form of of when it is ...
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5
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How to pronounce -est endings
In English, the letters est is generally pronounced /ɛst/ in a stressed syllable. It's only in unstressed syllables that it's reduced to /ɪst/ or /əst/, depending on the speaker's dialect (most often /...
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4
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Different pronunciation of "o" in done, lone and gone
Why is gone spelled the same way as lone, when it's pronounced differently?
Because when English spelling was fixed, they were pronounced the same.
In Middle English, there was no fixed spelling of ...
- 90.3k
4
votes
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Confusing 'r' sounds
Rzedowski's pine, if you base your pronunciation on the Polish one, would be "zhe-DAWF-skee's pine". However, I would imagine a lot of people don't pronounce it based on the Polish pronunciation, ...
- 84.5k
4
votes
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pronunciation of climbing
I'm not aware of this being a common pronunciation in any English dialect.
A common feature of American Black English (aka AAVE) is reducing consonant clusters at the ends of words, e.g. "west" will ...
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4
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Two 'x's in "anti-vaxxer"
I don't think it's likely that "vaxer" would be misread as sounding like "vakes-er". All of the normal existing words with similar spelling (such as wax, ax, tax) are pronounced ...
- 84.5k
4
votes
Two 'x's in "anti-vaxxer"
If you expect English spelling to obey rules, you will often be disappointed.
This Ngram is for American English.
The British English Ngram shows only "vaxer".
Ngram does show both "...
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3
votes
Why is the accent on "petrol" and "patrol" different?
There is no reliable way to predict the stress pattern of a polysyllabic word ending in a single vowel letter (i.e. not a vowel digraph) followed by a single L. Some such words have final stress (e.g. ...
- 84.5k
3
votes
Scimitar or Cimitar?
Variant spellings of scimitar in English go back to the middle of the seventeenth century at least. Edward Phillips, The New World of English Words (1656) notes three variant spellings:
A Cimiter, ...
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3
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What effect do neighboring vowel-letters have on the pronunciation of the letters "sc" in a word?
Usually only the following vowel letters are relevant, and only for sc, not for sch.
Main possible pronunciations of sc: /sk/, /s/ or /ʃ/
In general, "c" in "sc" follows the usual ...
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3
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Accepted
How to pronounce, "Tut! Tut!"
It is not known to me as anything but a "double click".
Such sounds cannot be written accurately in English.
Wikipedia
It may be that some try to pronounce tut, tut as it is written, but i do not ...
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1.3 Liters or 1.3 Liter? Fractions and plural form
For straightforward expressions of volume, you would keep the 's':
Here's 1.3 liters of beer.
The volume of this beer glass is 1.3 liters.
If I drink more than 1.3 liters of beer, I like to ...
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3
votes
Accepted
What is the correct spelling for 'finash'/'feenash'/'phinash'/'pheenash'?
The word you are looking for is probably finesse.
When referring to something creative or artistic, it means great skill and delicacy - getting all the 'fine' details right.
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2
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1.3 Liters or 1.3 Liter? Fractions and plural form
Before the noun: a 1.5 meter wall.
Otherwise: the wall is 1.5 meters long.
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When should or could I change the pronunciation of a word, like in water, little, lot
I would suggest you first do what works for you. Don't try these things because they are part of the culture or accent. As this is not your primary language, you should focus on being able to speak ...
- 240
2
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Scimitar or Cimitar?
OED lists 'cimitar' as a variant spelling found in the 1900s. One OED attestation in 1922, from the Nassau Literary Magazine, shows the 'cimitar' spelling.
Even earlier, the variant spelling is ...
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2
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Reengineering or re-engineering?
This comes down to a matter of opinion, but as a long-time editor I prefer the hyphenated version because it is easier for me to read. Collins, Cambridge and Macmillan agree with us, while Merriam-...
- 6,767
2
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Use of silent letters and how to identify them?
Spelling is generally not phonetic, as speaking and writing are not synchronised. At some point in the distant past they might have started out with a straight mapping, but if they did, they have ...
- 3,244
2
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Why is the accent on "petrol" and "patrol" different?
Petrol is a light fuel oil that is obtained by distilling petroleum and used in internal combustion engines. The word is thus derived from petroleum.
Petroleum is a noun-adjunct, noun pair from
...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible