The Pronunciation Thread

"dwarves" was coined by Tolkien iirc?

Tolkien, a writer whose reputation dwarfs his talents.

Oh here we go: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000293.html

yeah that's interesting. instinctively prefer dwarfs as a verb & dwarves as a noun. as is noted in the following article there are similar words w/ inconsistent plural forms like staff, wharf, beef & turf

staff - staves

my worst one was infra-red pronounced in-FRARED and i did that after college; thought they were different spectrums

though "good" and "book" don't rhyme to me, the "oo" in book yes is identical to the "oo" in "hoof", now that I think about it. I think the "f" just elongates the vowel sound in a misleading way. All online recordings of "how to pronounce 'hoof'" pronounce it to rhyme with "roof", by the by, so maybe Canada is crazy

Wait, what is the difference between the vowels in "good" and "book"? Sometimes my "good" deteriorates into something close to a "gid" but I think it's basically the same vowel. And, yeah, I'd use the same vowel in "hoof" but pronounce "roof" with the vowel in "moon". I had a friend from the Chicago area who used the "book" vowel in "roof" though. Actually, I've heard some people in Saskatchewan pronounce "room" with the "book" vowel!

Interestingly, the American here agrees with us about "hoof" but the Canadian doesn't: http://www.forvo.com/word/hoof/

I tend to think the dwarfs / dwarves thing is more about inconsistent verb / noun usage, and the verb being taken for the noun (or the other way around).

Because I'm also much happier with dwarfs as the verb and dwarves as the plural noun.

But when I try to think of other examples of disparate verb/nouns, right now I can only come up with "he scarfs his food" and "he wears scarves around his neck".

Wolfs/wolves, loafs/loaves...

he wolfs his food down. he ate 3 loaves.
he loafs around all day. with the other sleepy wolves.

right, i'd also suggest that the employees sense of staff might be derived from the verb & thus is pluralized differently from the sticks

Staff -> staves iirc

Hoof/hooves!

Err... behoof/behooves!

Please ignore me.

When a dwarf does a runner, would you say the dwarf "hoofs it"?

Yes, unless they're actually a satyr.

#keepignoringmeplz

i was shocked to find last night that my bf pronounces the word "adequate" with a hard k sound, like "attakit"

What on earth?

i wasn't even trying to correct him; i just had no idea what word he was saying!

Is he from a particular place or has he just been mispronouncing it his whole life? It's kinda endearing to tell you the truth.

Adequa state

I think kw for q is slowly losing traction. I hear "korter" all the time now for quarter.

he's from louisiana, but i've never heard anyone else pronounce it like that

fwiw he also pronounces "thermos" like "thur-moze"

i think it's endearing too! just surprising.

Uh, thur-moze otm

thur-muss

ther-mos

unw? j.......n are you reading thermos as a plural of thermo

could U be? thermos beautiful girl in the world?

eigh wud dai fore yew

OK, so apparently I've been pronouncing "baton" wrong my whole life? Always thought it was buh-TAWN, but I just listened to a newscast where it was referred to as a BAA-tun.

So how have you been pronouncing Baton Rouge?

Always thought it was buh-TAWN

that's how michael johnson always says it tbf

Slaithwaite

So how have you been pronouncing Baton Rouge?

― Root It Oot (Tom D.), Tuesday, December 23, 2014 8:16 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The second way, but I've never considered it as the same thing that a cheerleader twirls or a police beats someone with.

Even though it is?

Always thought it was buh-TAWN, but I just listened to a newscast where it was referred to as a BAA-tun.

And BAA-ton?

fwiw i have relatives in louisiana who rhyme baton with satin

That's what I was trying to convey with the second pronunciation.

I'm just faking my way through being able to write words phonetically.

regional dialects ftw
there is no "wrong" if people understand you

also http://ipa.typeit.org/

Yes there is no such thing as mispronunciation &c but there's a weird mispronunciation I've been hearing more & more (basically from listening to US podcasts) that I can't help but find grating: this bizarre mangling of the word "processes" so the last syllable sounds like the last syllable of "indices", "theses" &c. It's obv an example of overcorrection & not a big deal but it sounds dumb as hell imo - god knows how the first person got it in their head to start doing this, having presumably heard other people speak before

Oh, I've heard that one lots of times. I never really knew where it came from. Is it new? I don't know if I personally know someone who does it. I also don't think I know anyone who drops the "h" in "historical" or "hotel" when speaking English or who pronounces "detail" like dəˈtāl, although I've heard all of these on TV.

who pronounces "detail" like dəˈtāl

What vowel sound are the "process-eez" people using in the first syllable? I use the same long "o" in "process" and "project" (as a noun) that I use in "program(me)" but I don't think anyone else in the US does. Does anyone outside Canada pronounce "project" with a long "o"?

Does anyone outside Canada pronounce "project" with a long "o"?

Yes.

processeees people are all american so use the short "o" sound which is more common over there I think

as far as being new, it's new to me at least

often have to suppress a slight cringe with hypercorrections but with this I lean towards confidently stating it's bad

"remember to tip your waitresseees"

loves his word sounds