# Pronounciations that grate: Is it because I'm old? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 19, 2012, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645 "2012-06-19T14:32:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/81 "2012-06-21T19:54:06Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Um, are there any other words where a single f is pronounced as a v? Of ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/82 "2012-06-21T20:08:15Z")
That’s not in front of a voiced suffix, though. ---
**Author:** ![UntouchedTakeaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d78d45/32.png) [@UntouchedTakeaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UntouchedTakeaway)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/83 "2012-06-21T20:13:41Z")
“Carmel” for “Car-a-mel”. Makes me _insane_ - I’ve even heard it from radio “professionals”. UT ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/84 "2012-06-21T20:18:43Z")
I’m not sure what I’m arguing for at this point, but roof -\> rooves hoof -\> hooves dwarf -\> dwarves wolf -\> wolves half -\> halved life -\> lived The [f] becomes a [v] naturally in English phonology. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/85 "2012-06-21T23:16:28Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I’m not sure what I’m arguing for at this point, but > > roof -\> rooves > hoof -\> hooves > dwarf -\> dwarves > wolf -\> wolves > half -\> halved > life -\> lived > > The [f] becomes a [v] naturally in English phonology. It does, I agree, but it’s then written as a v. The only word where f is pronounced as a v is in of, and I’m not sure a word as different as that (different to plurals and part participles, that is) is a good example. (I assume you mean life-lives, not life-lived, since lived obviously is the past participle of the verb live, not the noun life). ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/86 "2012-06-22T00:32:17Z")
Moved CS --\> IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/87 "2012-06-22T01:30:14Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > roof -\> rooves > hoof -\> hooves These constructions are almost as odd to me as pronouncing a long i in short-lived. I would write and say roofs and hoofs. > [@Acsenray](#): > > The transformation of [f] to [v] before a voiced suffix is natural in English. Even if you spelled it “lifed,” you’d still pronounce it as if it had been spelled “lived.” No, you wouldn’t. As evidence, the original “long i” backer in the thread provided the example “knifed.” That’s a hard f sound, not a soft v. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/88 "2012-06-22T01:53:41Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > These constructions are almost as odd to me as pronouncing a long i in short-lived. I would write and say roofs and hoofs. I was waiting for someone to say this. In my lifetime, I have seen _roof_ (particularly) go from irregular to regular in its plural. It’s been very interesting to observe. [M-W.com](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/roof) now lists only _roofs_ as the plural, which would have been ungrammatical when I was in elementary school. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/89 "2012-06-22T02:02:00Z")
Thought of more examples where the past tense of a verb ending in a single f retains the hard f sound: Proofed, briefed, chafed, strafed, dwarfed, engulfed, golfed, loafed. If we’re just talking about sounds, [ph] pronounced as [f] is never converted to [v] in past tense. Graphed, (autographed, photographed, telegraphed, etc…), morphed, triumphed. The same holds true for [gh]. Coughed, laughed, roughed, etc… ---
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/90 "2012-06-22T02:49:56Z")
> [@UntouchedTakeaway](#): > > “Carmel” for “Car-a-mel”. Makes me _insane_ - I’ve even heard it from radio “professionals”. > > UT This is hilarious - I just returned to the thread to post the exact opposite: I keep hearing commercials in which it’s pronounced “care-a-mel” (with the three syllables) instead of “car-mul” (with two), which is the way I’ve pronounced it all my life. “Toe-may-toe”, “toe-mah-toe”, eh? ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/91 "2012-06-22T03:32:28Z")
I don’t think I have ever heard anyone other than commercial narrators pronounce caramel as car-a-mel. The Southern habit of (mis)pronouncing the -ture in words such as furniture and literature as “-tyoor” instead of “-chur” still irritates me after nearly 30 years of living here. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/92 "2012-06-22T03:49:10Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > and my all time unfavorite: > > “CHEW-dren.” (That one seems popular among people who are trying to get some sketchy law passed. “Do it for the CHEW-dren.”) I can’t quite get behind this one because it seems to be a dialectical difference in pronunciation, rather than just laziness. In the modern classic _A Confederacy Of Dunces_ the older working class New Orleans characters of Cajun extraction usually pronounced it “chirren”, as the author wrote it out. Toole wrote out a different pattern of pronunciation for the one young African American character. OTOH, pronunciations like “liberry” and “track” (for _tract_), just seem like laziness. I know we’re getting into the prescriptivism/descriptivism debate here. But in every language, young children mispronounce certain common patterns of vowels or consonants. To retain childish pronunciation throughout adulthood just seems wrong, subjective though that judgment may be. On still another hand, however, I have to consider that the possibility that the way children speak a language might well lead the way as that language evolves into another. As spoken Latin in the era of the Roman Empire evolved into Vulgate Latin by the twilight of the Empire, changing patterns of pronunciation led to the radical simplification of the inflectional system. Furthermore, the daughter Romance languages of today are characterized generally by the simplification of consonant clusters, e.g. _/ct/_ to /t/, not entirely unlike the loss of the first /r/ in _library_, resulting in the “liberry” pronunciation. Over time, a simpler pronunciation can “win out”, but before that happens, it can reflect poorly on the speakers who use it. > [@](#): > > It also bugs me that the named “Favre” (as in Brett) is pronounced “Farve,” but hey, whatever. I’m kind of over that one now. This is a blessing in disguise. Unless they are well versed in French, and that applies to a only small percentage of Anglophones, you don’t want them going around trying to pronounce words like Favre in the correct French fashion. ---
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/93 "2012-06-22T04:18:43Z")
How about "asterix’ and of course “ax”? Or just about anything Al Sharpton says? (And I don’t want to hear what a racist I am, I agree with everything Al says I just don’t think he has the right to mispronounce everything. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/94 "2012-06-22T04:18:52Z")
[This](http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/388728/it-sounds-like-poo) South Park clip might amuse you, and be relevant and stuff. (NSFW, naughty language) ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/95 "2012-06-22T04:49:56Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > “Skedule” sounds pretty horrible to me. North Americans also pronounce the “d” differently, don’t we? IIRC the British pronunciation is more or less “shedule”, while Americans say “skedjule”. Or am I misremembering? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/96 "2012-06-22T04:51:41Z")
> [@denquixote](#): > > How about "asterix’ and of course “ax”? Or just about anything Al Sharpton says? (And I don’t want to hear what a racist I am, I agree with everything Al says I just don’t think he has the right to mispronounce everything. I haven’t heard the “asterix” pronunciation; on the other hand I’ve heard “asterik” which drives me nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/97 "2012-06-22T05:45:24Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I haven’t heard the “asterix” pronunciation; on the other hand I’ve heard “asterik” which drives me nuts. - Asterik \*is the singular. \*Asteriks \*is the plural! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/98 "2012-06-22T06:24:55Z")
I’ve been listening to a Learning Company course on religions and the instructor drives me nuts with his pronunciations. Himalayas - he pronounces it like regalia Muhammad - he pronounces the first syllable moo Islam - he pronounces the second syllable slam Buddha - he pronounces it boo da like it’s two separate words. At first I was telling myself that this man is a scholar and has traveled extensively. He may be using the more correct local pronunciations for these words. But, dammit, I know how to speak English. I know what the correct pronunciation is for words like poem (which he pronounces poyim) and peninsula (peninchoola). ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/99 "2012-06-22T15:17:40Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > This is a blessing in disguise. Unless they are well versed in French, and that applies to a only small percentage of Anglophones, you don’t want them going around trying to pronounce words like Favre in the correct French fashion. This is a standing joke between me and my bf, who would rather die than say anything with the correct French pronunciation-MASSage, GEHRige, _Herb_- but can’t stand the FARV thing. We make a point of saying “FaaahvRRRRRRRa” in the most exagerrated faux French accent we can produce without coughing. ---
**Author:** ![Deegeea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Deegeea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deegeea)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/100 "2012-06-22T15:27:21Z")
In my poll, long-lived with a short i is winning by a landslide… > **[Long or short i in long-lived? Poll](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=655997)** > > In the thread about pronunciations that grate, no consensus was being reached about the word “long-lived” so I decided to post a poll about it. Online dictionaries list both pronunciations, and the two I checked had them in different orders. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645.md?page=6)