Perhaps a little lowbrow for GQ, so I’ll try this here:
I always thought that what is popularly (incorrectly, too, yes?) known as a tidal wave was pronounced “t’soo-na-mi”, with the " t’s " portion pronounced like “It’s” without the “I”. Now, on the television news, I constantly hear it pronounced “Soo-na-mi”. Since I normally consider broadcasters to be more or less the standard for pronunciation, I’m confused. Which is which?
In spoken Japanese the “T” in the “Ts” pronunciation is often elided, or at least semi-elided so that the “S” is extended slightly: I lived near a place named Tsukaguchi, which from most Japanese came out as “Sska-Gucci”, or just “Ska-Gucci”. “Ssu-nah-mee” is probably slightly better, but “Su-nah-mee” works perfectly well.
I definitely prefer the t to be pronounced. However, since no native English word begins with ts, English phonotactics tend to eliminate the t (much as you don’t say p-sychology or k-sylophone).
ahhh, nothing like wars and disasters to teach us americans geography and vocabulary…
I called it a too-sami yesterday. Duh. Then my friend cracked up and neither of us could say it. Then we realized there was nothing funny about it and had a moment of silence.
I always thought that the “ts” sound is sort of inherent to the beginning-“s” sound. You have to put your tongue behind your front teeth and hiss, and the initiation of breath gives the sound a little zing of “ts.”
I mean, you can breathe an “s” word one of two ways: “ts” (which is quicker and cleaner) or “hs” (which is sloppy and takes a lot of breath). “Hs” would require that you begin exhaling before you put your tongue behind your teeth. So if you pronounce it “soo-na-mi,” unless you’re huffing away before you start to voice the word (unlikely), you’re already saying “tsunami.”
I don’t find any difficulty in pronouncing it with th “ts” sound. Like tsetse fly.
When you say a phrase like “It’s a boy”, you’re using the same pronunciation.