How do you pronounce Either?

Strong I - Ither

Or e-ther

Does the gas ether have the same pronunciation?

Obviously this is going to vary substantially by region (poll would have been more interesting if you broke it down thusly). I think the American pronunciation is generally with the long E while the Queen’s pronunciation is the long I. Hence some Americans will pronounce it the British way, but they’re probably pretentious twits.

I seem to recall a song…

Alternate between eethur and iithur. Ether the gas is different again.

Other: either way.

So, that explains why I keep hearing people say I-ther. They are using the Brit pronunciation. Interesting.

Of course neither can also have the strong I or strong E. That’s also a Brit thing?

Yup, this.

I pronounce it both, I mean either, way.

“eether”, but a good portion of the time I’ll mix it up and use “eye-ther” (perhaps 20% of the time?)

Eeeth-er. The gas, ether, has a stronger TH sound, if that makes sense (more like-ee-THer).

I pronounce it with a long i (which is to say the diphthong ʌɪ) in the first syllable, just like Aslan.

Sorry, neither :rolleyes: And I pronounce it with the strong I.

E-ither one, I-ither way - Both ways have their place and I wouldn’t say I use one more than the other.

Ether is ee-TH-er.

Technically, the difference between the two th sounds is that the th in either is voiced, while that in ether is voiceless. I write this in full anticipaiton that the knowledge will be entirely useless to you. :wink:

Either way.

Other: Either way, probably with some kind of contextual consistency that I have never examined in detail.

The same goes for me. I’ve tried speaking a few sentences to try to get a feel for when I use each pronunciation and I couldn’t find any consistant rule that feels “right”.

This. I blame being Canadian and multilingual (English and American!)

Umm, I’m a Brit and I say eether.

I think I say ee-ther all the time. But when I try saying eye-ther, that too sounds correct.

So, I’m probably in the “depends on the context” boat too, and without a clue what the rule is.