The Pronunciation Thread

"FYE-ERRR" that is how that is pronounced, everyone I know says it like that. However I do not understand this "t" dropping nonsense, I can't even figure out how that would work, if I try to say it like that I cannot.

My sister is like physically incapable of pronouncing the letter g if it is anywhere in a word besides the very start, which is odd.

(in Texas "fire" is pronounced "far," obv)

i love the collegian bicoastal accent (er i wrote 'college girl' there which may be poor on my part, but i associate it with a) a girl in my program, b) a girl i uh met in d.c. and c) kathleen hanna) where the vowels are overrounded and at the front of the mouth, sort of valley girl (again with the girl thing, sorry!) but not really.
conv. btw aforementioned girl b. and me:
b: we could hang out on my reef.
g: what?
b: is that okay?
g: your reef?
b: my REWF.
g: haha oh your ROOF
b: dewn't make fun of me, minneapolis

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Pack"
To: darren
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 6:47 PM
Subject: Social with Ming Campbell MP

Just a reminder that the Lib Dem spring social is a buffet supper with Ming Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' Shadow Foreign Secretary.

It's from 7:30pm on Wednesday 3rd March at 20 North Grove, Highgate. The recommended price is £8.50 (£4.50 for pensioners / claimants, children free).

Funny, trying to teach my Spanish English-teachers who have Britsh-tinged-Spanish-accents to pronounce words, I've decided that British English has fewer distinct vowel sounds. At least the "short" vowels: like the a in cat is a short vowel, or the i in bit.

But now that you mention it, all the vowels in combination with R are different for Brits, but not for Americans. We just say stuff differently.

But surely fillet is distinct from filet - the latter is meant to be pronounced as the French would, the former has been anglicised with the extra "l" to allow it to be pronounced, er, fillet.

ah, dictionary tells me: fillet and filet are both correct spellings but have essentially the same meanings, though the former can be pronounced both ways and the latter only the hard t way (yet the filet entry gives the example of filet mignon with the pronunciation of filay...). I suppose my issue is that these are French words whose pronunciation has been changed, yet there are other French words whose pronunciation stays the same. I just wonder about how arbitrary that change is, y'know, why it happens sometimes and not other times.

POYM!

*neither would i, what in the hell are you talking about

It's VAHZ, Laurel (in this country anyway).

(xpost, JBR, my teachers insisted on PO-YIM! Or POME!)

XP: Robyn, do you do the flat "a" in drama and pasta? See, now that gives me a real shudder, but I think all the Canadians I knew (and loved) in college used both of them!

but she sure as hell does say DRAHH-ma.

(Markelby to thread about pasta, obviously)

Please no.

I say drama/pasta in a way that I'm finding hard to write out phonetically. Yes, but I'm sure it's that flat a way b/c I know americans say it slightly differently. (This has kinda come up lately b/c I was watching online videos (from that roxy thread) and trying to figure out if the guys were Cdn, which I was sure they were - and was right! But in a lot of American tv, actors are trained to have a more neutral accent, so I don't get to hear it too much. haha, and then sometimes I watch Dr. Phil and THERE YA GO all over the place. Neat.)

One day, when I have a foyer, I'm going to become sooo snoooty about it.