The word [syrup] is ‘sur-up’, first syllable rhyming with ‘burr.’ Not ‘seer-up’.
And to ask a question about why something happened, the right way is to ask 'Why?" not ‘How come?’
When I make the “ks” sound my tongue is further forward and less of it touches the roof of my mouth. With the “x” sound it’s a further back and a little flatter against the roof of my mouth. The sound difference is subtle, but it’s crisper than a “gz” sound, less crisp than a “ks” sound.
Okay, I’ll be the one to ask. Is it ecksettra or egzettra?
This bugs me way more than it should. Same issue with less/fewer. "There were fewer people in line than I expected. " “I want less Soylent Green on my plate, as I’m dieting.” The words are not interchangeable dammit :mad:
You may be on to something here. All those work for me, though I don’t think I make an exception and pronounce “eccentricity” with the voiced sounds.
Just watched the latest episode of Charmed, and someone just gave as a Christmas present a “hand-carved chess set based on Japanse netsuke.” i had to rewind because a.) I’ve never heard that word used on American TV outside of Antiques Roadshow and b.) I couldn’t believe how badly he mangled the pronunciation: the word is pronounced something like “net ski”–he pronounced it “net su kay.”
Neither “ki” as in “ski” nor “kay” is quite right; I think the final vowel is better approximated by “e” as in “bet”
You are the worst grammar nazi of all, a fewerer.
Y’all begin by agreeing on how to do it first, ok?
I’ve got a guildie (Spanish language) who always flips his S and C/Z in writing. That’s bad, but it’s worse that he’s managing to infect people who used to be able to spell correctly! AAAAARGH!
Part of the issue here appears to be that it’s not Spanish but pig-Spanish.
In Spanish as spoken by people who actually speak Spanish, mano a mano is a collaboration; even when used to refer to a “combat” type situation, it’s one where the two people are at such a similar level that it’s beautiful to watch even to those who don’t understand it (think “tour de force”). Hand to hand is cuerpo a cuerpo (lit. “body to body”). You do find “mano a mano” as “hand to hand” in bad translations from English.
I think it was Broomstick who provided the explanation that mano a mano isn’t actually supposed to be real Spanish: it’s a joke about the conceit that you can get any Spanish noun by tacking an -o after its English equivalent, which would indeed yield the American mano a mano as the pig-Spanish version of man to man. It’s just never been Spanish, and what’s a mistake is the common assumption that it is. Oh, and since it’s not Spanish but “gringo at its most purposefuly-stupid”, man-OW ah man-OW is actually the correct pronunciation.
I wish I had saved a single-panel comic from the 70s called Mr. Tweedy. The totally clueless main character was in a Mexican shop and said, “I’ll do my besto to speako Spanisho if you do your besto to speako Englisho.”
Heck, just this week (and it’s only Wednesday) there have been that kind of lineos in some of the Trumpo threados…
I remember a radio commercial where a clueless American tourist is asking natives where to find the ATM, and he butchers their language.
Mexico: “Ah, senor, el casho machinio? You know, muy dinero?”
France: “Uh, mumzelly, le cache machine, silver plate?”
Japan: “Ah, so Joe, me needee dough in Tokyo, you tellee me where I find quickee cashee?”
With me, it’s pronouncing NASA “NASS-saw.”
“NASS-uh” is NASA. “NASS-saw” is Nassau.
Are you referring to eT-set-e-ra?
The teachers in my elementary school were high priestesses of the Funk and Wagnall’s. Therefore, I know that the second syllable in plantain is properly pronounced as it is in curtain, mountain, and captain. Readers are urged to check any dictionary should they disagree.
For the other science teachers and students out there- mitosis and meiosis differ in pronunciation, but only by dropping the T sound in mitosis. Here’s a mnemonic for them: meiosis makes egs and sperms, so that’s sex, so it’s my**-oh-oh-oh**-sis!
My boss uses the word “supposedly” all… the… time.
The problem?
He pronounces it “exposably”. Drives me fucking nuts.
et-kē-te-ra, with a hard “c”, if you are actually speaking Latin.
The word you were looking for is dipthong: a syllable which has two vowel sounds. There are also tripthongs, such as the English word “why”: one syllable, three vowel sounds.
One of the biggest difficulties of Anglophones with Spanish, Italian or Japanese is precisely that they tend to, on one hand, add extra vowels (specially when a word ends in a, one, vowel), and on the other split the dipthongs: die-go becomes di e-gou (well, di e-kou is more like it, actually, but I was talking about the vowels).
The word *you *are looking for is diphthong.