I only have the e /ɛ/ in “milk” and “vanilla” (vanella). Born and raised in So. California, but midwestern parents.
Okay, Mr. Luxury-Yacht.
MiiS for mills? Never heard that. Sounds bizarre.
People who pronounce Diesel as “Dee-Suhl” as opposed to “DEE-Zuhl” drive me nuts, but I guess I can live with it.
The worst part is that his name is actually Miles.
Huh? I have never heard anyone say “DEE-Zuhl”. Where do you live, BrickBat?
This astounds me. They think Americans pronounce diesel like ‘DEE-suhl’, which i have rarely heard, and attributed to snobbery or a speech impediment when I did. They don’t know what they are talking about. This website gets it right. It’s pronounced ‘DEE-zuhl’ everywhere.
Well, you astound me, TriPolar. I say diesel exactly as that recording you linked to for Americans. I spent a long time in the car business and have never heard anyone say it the other way. Even people who weren’t native speakers. Thus, it is NOT pronounced your way “everywhere”, sorry.
Sorry for hijacking your thread, panache45.
Well, you astound me ,kayT. I spent a long time being alive and never heard anyone say it the other way (except occasionally as I already mentioned). Even people who weren’t native speakers. Thus, it is NOT pronounced your way “anywhere”, sorry.
Your turn. Please stick to the format if we are to continue this.
I don’t say it at all very often but when I do, I say “dee-zuhl.” I think. Now I’m not sure. But I took German in high school, so it makes sense that I would pronounce it the German way.
FWIW my father and his brother pronounced their last name differently. And my grandfather, an immigrant with a heavy accent, pronounced it differently from both of them.
I have heard fans of the Chicago football team pronounce its name as “Bearsss” while the rest of the world softens it to “Bearzzz.” And even “Bayrsss” and Bayrzzz."
OK you win. Do I have to change how I say it? I guess I can go around town muttering dee zil but I have a feeling I am too old a dog to learn this new trick. And do I have to start saying Bearss and Millss too? Yikes!
There are people in England (I think mostly London and East Anglia) whose pronunciation of a final “L” sound morphs into a near-vowel sound, like an “oo”.
On the other hand, to the west, it’s worked the other way around, which is why mediaeval Bristowe became Bristol.
All right fine. You say DEE-zuhl and I’ll start saying it the wrong way.
I pronounce it “DEE-zuhl,” but I do wonder if I am somewhat influenced by being around UK speakers for 5 or 6 years, where that pronunciation seems to be more common.
Listening to the samples at forvo.com, the 2 British and 1 Australian one both have a voiced “z” sound in there. Only one of the American ones has the voiced “z,” and the other three have the unvoiced “s.” The most upvoted American pronunciation is also the one with the “s” sound. Problem is, it’s not a good geographic sampling for the US. It’s all Eastern side of the US (there’s a map you can click on). The “z” pronunciation is from a male in southeast Pennsylvania, it looks like, or possibly Western Jersey.
On the other hand, the “z” pronunciation is the one that is listed first in the American dictionaries I checked, so that would suggest it is the more common of the two.
Neither sound wrong to me, which is why it’s hard for me to definitively state what the pronunciation is in my Great Lakes accent. I want to say the “z” version is standard, but my pronunciation has become intermixed with other accents, and the “DEE-suhl” pronunciation sounds perfectly fine to me, as well, so I don’t know.
Is this just variation in the way Americans pronounce that Z in the middle of a word? There are people who seem to be more on the S side with that sound and maybe that’s what’s being picked up as the difference on those web sites.
kayT is hearing DEE-suhl where I hear DEE-zuhl, maybe the reality is somewhere in between.
If you click on the Forvo link, I hear an “s” in all the American pronunciations except for SeanMauch’s (the third American pronunciation.) The others sounds like esses to me.
Or, here’s a vintage commercial. What do you hear at just after 7 seconds when the voiceover says “the diesel truck driving school”? To me, that’s an “s.” In this bit at about 12 seconds (“the pickup stinks in diesel,”), that one sounds like a “z” to me.
If that’s not what you’re talking about, can you give us an example of what you mean by “DEE-suhl”?
The Forvo link is pretty clear, two Americans sound exactly like DEE-suhl to me, and two UK examples sound exactly like DEE-zuhl. See the link in my post above. Those examples may be trying to highlight the difference though, I think what I say and many others is somewhere in between and the interpretation may be in the ear of the behearer.
My head hurts…
~VOW
Neither sound “wrong” and I wouldn’t think anything odd if I heard dee-suhl, but when I see the word I definitely read it as dee-zuhl. American from NYC.
During childhood in the 1960s in Cleveland, Ohio I noticed my family members pronouncing [mɛlk] and [ɛlɪnɔɪ] for milk and Illinois, but I never understood why.