Colonel

[Pumpkin]

Why is colonel pronounced nothing like its spelled?

What are some other words you can think of like this?

Leopard a little bit, but not as much

[WildRaubtier]

Rendezvous.

Also I am super upset this isn't a KFC thread, same principle.

[Madame Adequate]

Because English is a weird crazy language!

Knight.

[Del Murder]

hiccough

[Ayen]

Jan being pronounced as Yawn. WTF?

[Shauna]

Annoying foreigners and their destruction of the English language! :argh:

[Rantz]

queue

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

wednesday
tuscon
ouija board
bologna
february
receipt
asthma

[The Man]

List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_in_English_with_counterintuitive_pronunciations)

[Colonel Angus]

http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/22270

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

What's up with the u in colour. It literally adds nothing except one more letter to write out.

'Murica.

[blackmage_nuke]

Fatigue

[Big D]

february
asthmaIn UK English (UK, Australasia, etc) these are both pronounced as they're spelled.

February = feb-roo-airy
Asthma = ass-thma

It feels really odd to hear Americans talking about their "azzzma", though I'd imagine it's much the same for them when we pronounce words like lieutenant and aluminium differently.



What's up with the u in colour. It literally adds nothing except one more letter to write out.

'Murica.Now you're just being silly. In UK English again, the 'o' in colour is pronounced differently to the 'ou'. They're different sounds to they've got different spellings. Nothing was "added" to the word, quite the opposite in fact - American English underwent some spelling reforms a couple of centuries ago, simplifying and streamlining the language to make it easier for the average Joe to cope with. This added a whole lot of Zs, but replaced a lot of OUs with Os.

With a lot of really old words like "knight", the odd spelling reflects a way it was actually pronounced back in the depths of time. Sometimes, English kept the spelling from one region and the pronunciation from another - hence why the number 1 is spelled "one", but pronounced like "won" rather than "own".

[Yamaneko]

Seattle

[Mercen-X]

Would, could, should.

Sacagawea.

I think I've heard some people pronounce Wednesday as Wehnessday which does sound better to me that Wendsday.

I don't know if this is a common mispronunciation or if my grandmother is simply dyslexic, but she pronounces rotisserie like "rowshaterry" no matter how often you correct her.

I've never understood why lieutenant is pronounced "leftenant".

wiiji board. Of course, I would technically refer to that as a cultural idiosyncrasy as opposed to a counterintuitive pronunciation. Perhaps for many cultures the same could be said of any word derived thereof and pronounced differently in another.


KnightAny word spelt with Kn for that matter. Also Gn, gh, ph, th, sh, wh. I consider the h ones to be misspelled. Wh is pronounced "hw(a)", so "hwy" is it spelt wh? If you hold an h sound and then incorporate an s sound, then you inevitably get "sh" but it's spelt backwards. The same is true for gh which is afaik meant to be pronounced glottally similarly to "h(u)g". You can get a similar reaction with ph/th if you don't make the whole t or p sound. None of this, however, explains how one pronounces knight. I can imagine gnat was originally pronounced ngat, but knight implies consecutive glottal noises which seem just uncomfortable to say. Then there's ch. Shouldn't be a sound at all.

kewl... before they started spelling it that way.

I think the only way February should be properly MIS-pronounced is Febrewery.

[Rantz]

Draught!

[I Took the Red Pill]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti

[Shauna]

Wh is pronounced "hw(a)", so "hwy" is it spelt wh?

Uhh, I definitely do not pronounce "wh" like it starts with an "h". You obviously just talk weird. x}

[Miss Mae]

What's up with the u in colour. It literally adds nothing except one more letter to write out.

'Murica.
The 'our' spelling is caused by the French derivations of words. It wasn't added - it was removed. Webster removed the Us to simplify the language for the Americans. He also changed words like theatre/theater, defence/defense (there are a few like this), travelled/traveled (also a bunch of other double Ls that he adjusted) and added a lot of Zs to words that he felt had more of a 'z' sound. It was to make the language less about its derivations about more about its pronunciation.

[Mirage]

Aluminium turning into alu-minum is the single worst thing in the entire world.

What's next, uranum, plutonum? Changing xenon to xon? Helum? Idiots!

[Miss Mae]

Aluminium turning into alu-minum is the single worst thing in the entire world.

What's next, uranum, plutonum? Changing xenon to xon? Helum? Idiots!
We Australians are supposed to be really lazy with our punctuation, but even we can manage the extra 'i' in aluminium.

[Bubba]

I am fine with just about all the differences in pronunciation as language is a complicated thing at the best of times. The American pronunciation of aluminium is the only one that I can't abide. For some reason it really grates on me.

By the same token, the English pronunciation of lieutenant is smurfing stupid... perhaps more so.

[Miss Mae]

By the same token, the English pronunciation of lieutenant is smurfing stupid... perhaps more so.
Thankfully this is one that the Australians chose not to continue with.

[Slothy]

february
asthma

If you're not pronouncing those two the way they're spelled then you're doing it wrong.

And Aluminum and Aluminium aren't a case of the word being pronounced completely different from the way it's spelled. It's a case of there being two slightly different words for the same damn element. Aluminium does sound cooler though.

[Old Manus]

Sometimes American pronunciations are just cooler. Case in point: Bucking-HAM and Birming-HAM. Calling Swansea 'swan-sea' rather than 'swanzee' irritates me no end though.

[Bubba]

And Aluminum and Aluminium aren't a case of the word being pronounced completely different from the way it's spelled. It's a case of there being two slightly different words for the same damn element. Aluminium does sound cooler though.

Ah right, I thought they were spelled exactly the same on both sides of the pond. I guess this is OK then!

[Jiro]

And Aluminum and Aluminium aren't a case of the word being pronounced completely different from the way it's spelled. It's a case of there being two slightly different words for the same damn element. Aluminium does sound cooler though.

Ah right, I thought they were spelled exactly the same on both sides of the pond. I guess this is OK then!

Is it really okay to just delete letters whenever we feel like it, Bubb?

[Sephex]

Words with "ph" pronouncing the letter 'F'! I mean, who does that?

[Miss Mae]

Words with "ph" pronouncing the letter 'F'! I mean, who does that?
Phteven.

[Quindiana Jones]

Fugue.

It clearly says fuh-goo.

[Mercen-X]

Wh is pronounced "hw(a)", so "hwy" is it spelt wh?

Uhh, I definitely do not pronounce "wh" like it starts with an "h". You obviously just talk weird. x}

Sorry, but I don't know what " x} " means. Are you being serious right now? People with British accents in television shows who like to act like they know better than everyone else, pronounce words with wh as "hw" as in "hwat", "hwere", "hwen", "hwy", and "cool hwip" and denounce others who don't as "uneducated simpletons". So now, where did these words originate?

[Jiro]

x} is a smiley.

Exaggerating the pronunciation is often used in a sarcastic way. I cannot even think of an example where anyone pronounces the H first except for Stewie in Family Guy that one time, and that's American. I'm not convinced you aren't imagining or inventing this concept, to be honest. It sounds simply absurd to pronounce any of those words the way they're represented. Perhaps you should provide a voice clip to make sure we're not missing something here.

[Quindiana Jones]

Oh, re-heally?

[Mercen-X]

"No. O'Reilly!"

While "whip" is not of English origin and was never supposed to be pronounced as "hwip" as there never was an h in the word, all of the others originated as having the h at the beginning as in "hwaet" (what).

Fun fact: "who" was originally pronounced similarly to "kwo".

Etymology.com

[Shauna]

We aren't discussing how words were historically pronounced - that is a whole different kettle of fish. :p Today, I have never encountered anyone, not once in my 23 years of living in the UK, who exaggerates the "wh" sound in that way. My personal anecdote is enough proof!

[Night Fury]

Nguyen

[Mercen-X]

Hmm... maybe it is just how Americans rip on Brits. I've never met anyone with an English accent and I don't listen to how celebrities speak outside a show. I gotta start paying attention.

Pistachio (of course this may just be another American idiosyncrasy)

The suffix -tion.

Also pretty much any name/word in Chinese. Of course this could merely be a case of not knowing how to properly represent their name in English.

[Dat Matt]

lol sterotypes with no basis.

I'm not sure where you get that Brits have put empahsis on the "wh" sounds. Seems more JkhirUJDirg

[Mercen-X]

lol

I guess it's just Stewie then.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

lasagna

[Colonel Angus]

lasagna
Actually, that's pronounced exactly as it's spelled. the "gn" combo in Italian is pronounced just as ñ is en español.

[The Man]

For that matter, "rendezvous" is also pronounced exactly as it's spelled, since it's French. English is weird because a large number of its words are loanwords from other languages. Knowing the pronunciations of those languages makes a lot of English's idiosyncratic pronunciations more intuitive.

[Quindiana Jones]

Also pretty much any name/word in Chinese. Of course this could merely be a case of not knowing how to properly represent their name in English.

It's pinyin. Chinese sounds using the English alphabet to make it easier to communicate. They may be the same letters, but they aren't the same sounds. C, for example, is pronounced "ts", and Zh is pronounced like a soft "g". It's a completely different language, not just "improper English".

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Nguyen


I called a guy at work "Ngyou-yen" for like 4 months because I didn't know any better. Then I saw it pronounced on TV or somewhere, and felt like a moron. :cry:

I don't know who was the bigger jackass, me for not knowing or him for being too polite to say anything.

[Mercen-X]

Also pretty much any name/word in Chinese. Of course this could merely be a case of not knowing how to properly represent their name in English.

It's pinyin. Chinese sounds using the English alphabet to make it easier to communicate. They may be the same letters, but they aren't the same sounds. C, for example, is pronounced "ts", and Zh is pronounced like a soft "g". It's a completely different language, not just "improper English".

Ah, I see. Cool, so then it does qualify.

[Mirage]

Also pretty much any name/word in Chinese. Of course this could merely be a case of not knowing how to properly represent their name in English.

It's pinyin. Chinese sounds using the English alphabet to make it easier to communicate. They may be the same letters, but they aren't the same sounds. C, for example, is pronounced "ts", and Zh is pronounced like a soft "g". It's a completely different language, not just "improper English".

Then why isn't it romanized in a way that makes it sound right?

[Mercen-X]

Whangarei

Theory

Pizza

[Pumpkin]

Pizza is pronounced how it's spelled if you pronounce it properly

[Jiro]

Whangarei

Oh man, Maori pronunciation is the best. I went to Lake Taupo and it looks like it sounds like "tow-po" but it's like "toe-paw". Whangarei is even better. Whakatane is just :hahaha:

[Mercen-X]

Pizza is pronounced how it's spelled if you pronounce it properly

So then "Pete saw" is not proper...


BTW: Longevity. It's typically pronounced like there's a second g. "Long-jevity". The name Longinus is pronounced "Lon-ginus". Range is not pronounced "rang-j"... so yeah.

Rapport, Corps, and any other word where consonants are silent... why the hell have the letter in the word if you're not going to pronounce? Aesthetics?

[Quindiana Jones]

Theory is spelled exactly how it's pronounced.

Also, there are hard gs and soft gs, so longevity is also pronounced exactly how it's spelled.

[Alive-Cat]

The actual pronunciation of my username, 'Alive-Man' is actually gid-dee-drat-son-drat-son. Hardly anyone knows this.

[Mercen-X]

Theory is spelled exactly how it's pronounced.Really? I never realized it was pronounced "the ory". I've been pronouncing it wrong all of this time.


Also, there are hard gs and soft gs, so longevity is also pronounced exactly how it's spelled.

Examples, please.

[noxious.sunshine]

Gel. Soft G.
Gym. Soft G.

Tucson.

I had never seen Tucson spelled and said at the same time (& was most likely passed out in Geography) ... I thought there was "Tuck-sun" & "Two-son". I have no idea how or why I came to this conclusion, but then I was watching "Cops" & caught it.

My dad nearly throttled me. lmao. He was like "You. Are clearly not my child." & then he was calling it "Tuck-sun" for months. mwahaha

[Mercen-X]

I actually meant for more examples like Longevity wherein the ng and the "j" sounds occur simultaneously.

[Big D]

Whangarei

Oh man, Maori pronunciation is the best. I went to Lake Taupo and it looks like it sounds like "tow-po" but it's like "toe-paw". Whangarei is even better. Whakatane is just :hahaha:My primary school once held a contest to see if anyone could pronounce Lake Rerewhakaaitu properly. The common informal (and incorrect) pronunciation was something like "rooroo smurf eye two".

[The Man]

I actually meant for more examples like Longevity wherein the ng and the "j" sounds occur simultaneously.
Fringe. Orange. Range. Binge. Singe. Arrange. Derange. Enjoy. And so on. At least in my dialect of English these all have the same sound as longevity.

[blackmage_nuke]

It's ridiculous to have a letter with two sounds when there is already another letter that makes one of them.

[Miss Mae]

It's ridiculous to have a letter with two sounds when there is already another letter that makes one of them.
Let's also scrap C then - we have Ks and Ss.

[The Man]

ch isn't represented by any other sound, but other than that, yeah, c is pretty close to linguistically useless in English.

[Miss Mae]

We could just make c = ch and no other sound ever.

[The Man]

It would probably make more sense than the current orthography. But then, English orthography has never been particularly straightforward (or sensible) to begin with.

It would probably be almost impossible to get used to reading again, though, so it'll probably never happen for that reason alone :(

[Colonel Angus]

We could just make c = ch and no other sound ever.
Just for this, I'm moogle hugging all of your posts. :moogle:

[Miss Mae]

We could just make c = ch and no other sound ever.
Just for this, I'm moogle hugging all of your posts. :moogle:
Excellent.

[Colonel Angus]

We could just make c = ch and no other sound ever.
Just for this, I'm moogle hugging all of your posts. :moogle:
Excellent.
That was meant as a threat. :p :lol:

[Jiro]

Threatening Mae can have disastrous consequences. :ffviwag:

[Miss Mae]

We could just make c = ch and no other sound ever.
Just for this, I'm moogle hugging all of your posts. :moogle:
Excellent.
That was meant as a threat. :p :lol:
I figured. I refused to give you the satisfaction of it working.

[blackmage_nuke]

You dont even need c if you swap ch with kh and all previous kh to k.

We kan also get rid of x and q as x kan be replased by ks and q kan be replased by kw

And khanje the name of w so it's one syllable like every other letter. Kall it 'way' or something

[Miss Mae]

You dont even need c if you change ch to kh and all previous kh to k.

We can also get rid of x and q since x can be replaced by ks and q can be replaced by kw

And change the name of w so it's one syllable like every other letter. Call it 'way' or something
All of this. Yes.

[Mercen-X]

K and J could also replace g.


ch isn't represented by any other sound, but other than that, yeah, c is pretty close to linguistically useless in English.Technically, ch can be replaced with tsh.



I actually meant for more examples like Longevity wherein the ng and the "j" sounds occur simultaneously.
Fringe. Orange. Range. Binge. Singe. Arrange. Derange. Enjoy. And so on. At least in my dialect of English these all have the same sound as longevity.

I don't what dialect you're speaking if you're saying "f-ring-j", "o-rang-j", "bing-j", "sing-j", "ar-rang-j", or "de-rang-j"... I've come to think that pronouncing "longevity" as "Long-jevity" is just an American idiosyncrasy.

[The Man]

Technically, ch can be replaced with tsh.Not unless you're saying "ts" a lot differently than I am. I don't have a microphone to record it, unfortunately.


I don't what dialect you're speaking if you're saying "f-ring-j", "o-rang-j", "bing-j", "sing-j", "ar-rang-j", or "de-rang-j"... I've come to think that pronouncing "longevity" as "Long-jevity" is just an American idiosyncrasy."Fringe" and "longevity" have the same sound in Florida's dialect of English. I've never heard someone say "long-jevity". It's always been "lon-jevity".

[Miss Mae]

I don't what dialect you're speaking if you're saying "f-ring-j", "o-rang-j", "bing-j", "sing-j", "ar-rang-j", or "de-rang-j"... I've come to think that pronouncing "longevity" as "Long-jevity" is just an American idiosyncrasy."Fringe" and "longevity" have the same sound in Florida's dialect of English. I've never heard someone say "long-jevity". It's always been "lon-jevity".
Same in Australia, as far as I've ever heard.

[Mercen-X]

It's how I hear people pronounce it on television. Of course, these are the same people who say "for better or worst", "a whole 'nother", "irregardless", "and etc.", or even "excetera", and, yeah, well, you get it.

Which pronunciation is correct? Garbij or garbazh (garbage), garaj or gaerazh (garage), vestij or vesteezh (vestige), prestij or presteezh (prestige)?

[Miss Mae]

It's how I hear people pronounce it on television. Of course, these are the same people who say "for better or worst", "a whole 'nother", "irregardless", "and etc.", or even "excetera", and, yeah, well, you get it.

Which pronunciation is correct? Garbij or garbazh (garbage), garaj or gaerazh (garage), vestij or vesteezh (vestige), prestij or presteezh (prestige)?
This is how I pronounce them, and how I hear them pronounced here, but that doesn't mean that's necessarily "correct". The last two I use more of an 'ee' sound.

[Bubba]

c is pretty close to linguistically useless in English.

Q is the worst letter in the English language.

From the internet...

Q is the first letter on a computer keyboard (and therefore the first letter of the alphabet), and the most bizarre and ridiculous letter of the English language.It serves as comic relief in the stage performances of duo Q&A. Its shape and sound are embarrassing at best and patently obscene at worst. Q is also an image of when the letter 'I' beats his wife 'O'. This can be shown as I stabbing O.


Fortunately,Q is almost always buffered from contact with other letters by U, a little-used vowel of ill repute. This is a sure sign that the letter Q is a useless, co-dependent letter that is utterly incapable of doing anything on its own.


The extremely rare "naked Q" (that is, without its protective U) is the ultimate lexigraphical abomination, and is for the most part limited to foreign pagan languages, and names of weird unchristian countries, like Qatar which no Godfearing red-blooded patriotic American would be caught dead in.


Q is thought, by some people, to be a deformed relative of O. Others believe, for obvious reasons, that O is female and Q is male. Most people, however, believe that these people are either idiots or Time Lords, and should be burned at the stake while being forced to eat their own guts.

[Mercen-X]

Q


Speaking of which, does "c-u-e" spell "kyu" or "kweh"?

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

How are you supposed to say asthma without a lisp?

I just say asmuh.

[Shauna]

Speaking of which, does "c-u-e" spell "kyu" or "kweh"?

It's "kyu", as in a pool cue.

Ass-thma. It's not really lisp-y if it has a "th" in it.

[Pumpkin]

Gloucester near where I used to live was pronounced Gloster, but I dunno if that's common

[The Man]

Sucks to your ass-mar.

[Mercen-X]

Worchestershire

H... is it a consonant or a vowel?
Honest... "I am an honest man... I live in a house..." But then others will say "I live in an house." ???