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Forums => English & Linguistics => Topic started by: pooka on November 23, 2009, 08:32:03 PM

Title: Strange Proununciations
Post by: pooka on November 23, 2009, 08:32:03 PM: On sunday we had a Relief Society (Women's auxiliary) lesson about having a mighty change of heart. But the presenter kept saying "hort". I think she's from Idaho.
Title: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Jonathon on November 23, 2009, 08:34:14 PM: Weird. I don't think I've ever heard that before.
Title: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Tante Shvester on November 23, 2009, 09:00:57 PM: Jonathon, you ain't heard nuttin' 'til you heard me pronounce the English language. Open your eyes, it will. Pyooah Shvesterish.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: BlackBlade on October 04, 2012, 09:41:36 PM: So there's this annoying Family Guy themed commercial for Wheat Thins where Stewie insists on saying "Hwheat Thins" and Brian questions his pronunciation.

I *have* noticed that with the word "whip" British people have a way of making their mouths form the H sound as they say the word, so it sounds sorta like "Hwhip". I find it to be very pleasant.

This site (http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=whip&submit=Submit) demonstrates both pronunciations.

It makes sense though, Wh as in "Who" carries the H sound in American pronounciation, but Wh as in "Where" drops it. Yet in England they still say "Hwhere?" Same deal with "What". How come so many of those words, what, who, where, why, and when have that wh construction anyway?

Words like whistle, whisper, whiz, white however all drop the H even in English pronunciations. Kinda weird.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Amilia on October 04, 2012, 10:01:32 PM: I took a speech class in college years ago (was a theater major at the time). One of the things I remember from that class is that wh is actually pronounced hw. I don't know that I interalized that enough to actually do it when I'm not thinking about it, but, yeah, it's fun to listen for.

------

Watching Doctor Who on Saturday, I learned that quay is pronounced key. I was wondering if that was a Britishism, or if I had been pronouncing it wrong my whole life (not that I use the word often, but still). According to your link (which is awesome, btw), yes, I have been pronouncing it wrong. I love learning new things.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: BlackBlade on October 04, 2012, 10:29:33 PM: Quote
According to your link (which is awesome, btw)
Isn't it? My post took about 5-10 minutes longer because I got caught up in listening to that dictionary.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Jonathon on October 04, 2012, 11:07:18 PM: I don't know much about the distribution of the /h/ pronunciation, though it seems to be dying out, at least in the US. I remember being told in second or third grade that you were supposed to pronounce the h, and I thought that that was silly, because nobody pronounced it.

As for the question of where it comes from, well, it depends on how much of a historical linguistics lesson you want. The short answer is that in Old English, it was spelled hw, which makes much more sense, because that's how it's pronounced, but the Anglo-Norman scribes after William the Conqueror decided to switch it for some reason (maybe because there were already several combinations with a letter and then an h in French, so it made it consistent).

The ultimate source of the hw sound is the Proto-Indo-European *kw, which is also the source of the qu words in Latin. So English has who and what while Latin had quis and quid. The interrogative pronouns and adverbs all look the same because they're all formed from the same original PIE interrogative particle, just with various case endings of suffixes tacked on. (The, this, that, these, those, then, and there all look alike for similar reasons.)

Who is an outlier for phonological reasons. In Old English it was hwa, but as the vowel shifted upward to its modern /u/, the /w/ was dropped because it's difficult to make a sequence of two very similar vowel or semivowel sounds. The same thing happened in other words, like sword. And the same thing that happened to who actually happened to how at a much earlier stage, so by the time it was first written down, the /w/ was already gone.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Amilia on October 05, 2012, 06:44:48 AM: Fascinating!
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Annie Subjunctive on October 05, 2012, 06:46:19 AM: Aren't there various dialects in the US that pronounce the hw too?

Also, that little trip through Indo-European awesomeness just made my evening.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Tante Shvester on October 05, 2012, 08:15:25 AM: Yeah. I like Hegemony (http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=hegemony&submit=Submit).

Is there any incorrect way to pronounce that?
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: BlackBlade on October 05, 2012, 08:30:54 AM: I don't the British pronunciation of that at all. Both American versions are pleasant sounding.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: The Genuine on October 05, 2012, 09:06:58 AM: I pronounce debacle deh-buh-kuhl.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Jonathon on October 05, 2012, 10:27:39 AM: Quote from: Annie Subjunctive on October 05, 2012, 06:46:19 AM
Aren't there various dialects in the US that pronounce the hw too?

There are certainly people who pronounce it, but I don't know if it's a dialectal thing, an age thing, or an idiolectal thing.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Brinestone on October 06, 2012, 08:16:14 AM: Quote from: Tante Shvester on October 05, 2012, 08:15:25 AM
Yeah. I like Hegemony (http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=hegemony&submit=Submit).

Is there any incorrect way to pronounce that?

Yes. You could pronounce it hee-gee-mahn-ee.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Tante Shvester on December 06, 2016, 07:05:08 AM: At the BBC, "commander" rhymes with "Uganda".
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: pooka on February 10, 2017, 04:50:46 PM: I just said angst with an ah not a digraph.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Jonathon on February 10, 2017, 05:16:31 PM: I'm not sure what you mean by "digraph" there. Maybe diphthong?
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: pooka on February 12, 2017, 09:00:33 PM: It's what we my professors used to call the a in Brad.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Jonathon on February 12, 2017, 09:33:50 PM: Oh, I'd call that an ash, though the IPA character is technically a digraph: æ.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: pooka on February 18, 2017, 09:20:19 PM: It's possible I might have heard that. One of my jobs in college was as a reader for a blind linguistics ABD/instructor, and I had to be able to read IPA character by character.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Ela on December 05, 2022, 09:26:02 AM: I was listening to a podcast put out by Ha'Aretz, as Israeli newspaper, today and one of the folks on the podcast pronounced hyperbole “hyperbowl”. Pretty sure that's not a legitimate variation of how to say hyperbole.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Jonathon on December 05, 2022, 12:06:05 PM: Yeah, it's always hi-PER-buh-LEE. It sounds like someone just learned the word from reading.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: rivka on December 05, 2022, 02:31:04 PM: Quote from: Jonathon on December 05, 2022, 12:06:05 PM
It sounds like someone just learned the word from reading.
It does, and I have heard that particular error before in just such a case.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Ela on December 05, 2022, 09:24:06 PM: Yeah.

My very well-read son used to be notorious for that kind of error when he was in high school, especially: Mispronouncing words he had only seen in writing. It was amusing.

After two university degrees, I don't hear him making that type of error anymore.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Tante Shvester on December 06, 2022, 07:20:56 AM: I recall a special kind of thrill the first time I heard the word synecdoche pronounced. And the painful disappointment to learn that donzerly is not an adjective describing a special kind of comforting light, like the kind you get from a nightlight in a child's bedroom.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
A light so dim that people ask each other if they can see by it.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Brinestone on December 06, 2022, 12:39:59 PM: Man, now I wish donzerly was a word and that it meant that.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: pooka on December 15, 2022, 10:35:48 PM: I had to google it before I realized what you were referring to. It's hard to tell if the urban dictionary definition is being ironic (the zkueger entry, below the fold.)
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=donzerly
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Jonathon on December 16, 2022, 08:59:29 AM: My money's on ironic.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: rivka on December 16, 2022, 09:08:46 AM: So is mine. (And I had to Google it as well, and found the same entry.)
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: pooka on February 24, 2024, 10:41:43 PM: Doing my training module on Powered Air Purifying Respirator and how everyone pronounces it to rhyme with dapper.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Tante Shvester on February 26, 2024, 10:39:33 AM: There's the Papper and the Capper.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Tante Shvester on June 04, 2024, 11:56:41 AM: Lately it's been bothering me that slaughter and laughter are not anywhere close in pronunciation.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Ela on August 18, 2024, 11:26:56 AM: So I saw a meme asking why we pronounce the "g" in "longevity" twice. Pretty sure I don't.

So what's the correct pronounciation?
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Jonathon on August 18, 2024, 01:08:40 PM: Merriam-Webster says "län-ˈje-və-tē" (so a regular "n" sound followed by a soft "g"), but I guess I pronounce it like "long-gevity" (with an "ng" sound followed by a soft "g"). I'm not really pronouncing the "g" twice, because there isn't actually a "g" in the "ng" sound—it's just a nasal sound pronounced in the same place as a hard "g". But it makes sense why someone would think of that as pronouncing the "g" twice, since most people think of pronunciation in terms of spelling (which is why people also talk about "'g' dropping" in words like "singin'").
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Ela on August 18, 2024, 08:59:26 PM: I pronounce it the way Merriam-Webster says. So does my spouse.

Maybe the pronounciation differences are regional?
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Jonathon on August 19, 2024, 08:48:44 AM: It doesn't strike me as the kind of variation that's typically regional. And if it were regional, there's a fair chance it'd be in listed in the dictionary. I think it's more likely just an idiosyncratic thing, but I'm really not sure.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Ela on August 19, 2024, 06:22:55 PM: Thanks for your thoughts on it.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Jonathon on August 19, 2024, 07:42:34 PM: No problem! I didn't even realize before now that there was variation in how some people said it or that my pronunciation didn't match the standard dictionary pronunciation.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Ela on August 27, 2024, 11:25:40 AM: I didn't realize it either till I saw the meme about it.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: pooka on August 30, 2024, 10:16:05 AM: I do the "prounounce it twice" way. Which I guess makes sense because I learned it from my father, who learned English in the Western US.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: pooka on August 30, 2024, 10:18:37 AM: What about the sh in fiduciary? And does it depend in if you're pronouncing the second i?
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Ela on January 05, 2025, 09:54:44 PM: There's was a story on NPR about President Jimmy Carter's malaise speech and the NPR reporter pronounced it ma-lez, which I guess is close to the French pronounciation, but not the way I've ever heard it pronounced in English.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Jonathon on January 06, 2025, 08:20:20 AM: Huh. I've never heard that before either.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Ela on January 07, 2025, 01:43:32 PM: I don't think it's an accepted pronounciation for malaise in English. But the way she said it was very close to the way it's pronounced in French.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Jonathon on January 07, 2025, 01:59:52 PM: Merriam-Webster does list is as the second pronunciation, but it does make me wonder if the speaker has studied français.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Ela on January 07, 2025, 07:11:57 PM: Yeah, I wondered if she'd studied French, as well. Can't remember anymore who said it.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Noemon on January 30, 2025, 09:55:23 AM: Quote from: Ela on January 05, 2025, 09:54:44 PM
There's was a story on NPR about President Jimmy Carter's malaise speech and the NPR reporter pronounced it ma-lez, which I guess is close to the French pronounciation, but not the way I've ever heard it pronounced in English.
I heard that! It completely pulled my attention away from the content of the piece. I thought maybe she'd just kind of stumbled over the pronunciation, but then she did it again.
Title: Re: Strange Proununciations
Post by: Ela on January 30, 2025, 09:26:50 PM: Yeah, apparently it was a legit pronounciation. And it is close to the French pronounciation. But I've never heard it pronounced that way by an American before.