Generally speaking how would anglophone Canadians pronounce the words “missile” and “baton”? Would it be closer to the US pronunciation or to the British/ Irish pronunciation? (I assume I don’t have to explain the differences)
Cheers.
Well, I’ll tell you how I pronounce 'em, but I don’t knwo the difference, so you might want to expand on that.
I generally pronounce “missile” MISS-el, but I will be heard saying, from time to time, “miss-aisle”.
Baton is pronounced “bah-tohn”. By me, anyway.
Regarding “missile”, that’s the difference I meant.
For “baton” would you stress it on the first or second syllable?
How else can you pronounce “missile”?
I pronounce “baton” as “bah-TAWN.”
Yeah, like RickJay said, emphasis on the second syllable.
“Baton” – emphasis on the second syllable, short “O”
(Usual pronunciation around here.)
I pronounce the second “I” in “missile” long, but I think I’m in the minority on that one.
I’m curious as to what has made you curious about these particular words…
Are you a terrorist looking for tips on how to be an effective “sleeper” agent?
Or just generally interested in the Canuck pronunciation of phallic objects?
I say miss-aisle and baTON.
And leftenant.
I say miss-el batawn but say bahton for baton rouge the restaurant.
MISS - al
buh - TAWN
I pronouce them miss-ile. And Ba-ton.
It’s just that I have a video which was made in Ireland, the narrator is North American, but she pronounces both those words as an Irish person would. My initial assumption was that she was (like myself) a transplanted Yank who had simply been living in Ireland long enough to adopt the local pronunciation, but then it occurred to me this might be another one of the linguistic differences between my native country and yours. On the evidence so far though I’m thinking my first assumption was correct (though I suppose she could be a transplanted Canuck as well).
It’s not particularly important, I was just kind of curious.