GalacticCactus Forum

Forums => English & Linguistics => Topic started by: Doorknob on December 03, 2004, 11:35:52 AM

Title: Hours-ours
Post by: Doorknob on December 03, 2004, 11:35:52 AM
Due to a bad pun on advertising propaganda at my company.  I started thinking about this today.

How hick am I?  I  tend to pronounce "hours" as two syllables "ow-ers".    While I pronounce ours as "ares"   Or at least I think that's the way I say them.  It's definitely the way I hear them in my brain.

AJ
Title: Hours-ours
Post by: Jonathon on December 03, 2004, 11:56:28 AM
According to Merriam-Webster, that's how most people say them. Some people pronounce "our" like "hour," but the majority do not (though I don't know how large the majority is).
Title: Hours-ours
Post by: FLR on December 05, 2004, 09:32:17 AM
I forget what it's called when an adjective stands in the for noun phrase in which it would appear.  Maybe "ours" is more likely to have two syllables in that case.  Or it may just be whether the word is being stressed within the sentence- which is more likely to be the case when it is used to represent a noun.  
Title: Hours-ours
Post by: Jonathon on December 05, 2004, 12:02:44 PM
Ours isn't an adjective; it's a pronoun. It's the absolute form of our (meaning that it's always used without a noun), but I don't know if there's a word for "using an adjective in absolute form."