Found a new example: diaresis. I have always pronounced it die-uh-REE-siss in my head, but apparently it’s it’s die-ER-ruh-siss.
As far as I know, rhotic accents (which pronounce the R in car) tend to put the R in the previous syllable (and repeat it in the next syllable), while non-rhotic accents tend to put the R in the next syllable. Though there are exceptions for the former in compound words or if the word is just difficult to say that way.
Not me but I’ve seen “Walla!” written for A Reveal and probably not always intentionally.
I think what’s being signalled here is not the placement of the -r- but the vowel sound in the second syllable.
If the second syllable is rendered as “DEER” that suggests to me that the vowel sound is the same as in the English word deer, the animal. That is close to or the same as the same vowel sound in kit, bin, etc.
But if the second syllable is rendered as “DEE”, that suggests the same vowel sound as in flee, wee, see.
I listen to a history podcast which is very good except that the host’s … eccentric … pronunciation of some words gets to me.
For instance he says scheme as shh-keem. Ideological as ida-logical. Pursue as per-sooo. Deterioration as de-teary-ashun, culmination as culti-mation.
I can only assume he’s never heard anyone else say these words!
How do you pronounce this?
Per-Sue?
How is Sue pronounced differently from sooo? Is it the length of the oooo? Or are people pronouncing it sway, as in segue?
Chi was pronounced differently indifferent parts of ancient Greece. In the east it was more like “ch” in the west it was more like “ks”. Latin tended to follow the eastern Greek dialect so Χριστός became Christus in Latin and Christ in English. But everyone I know (not Greek) pronounces the name of the letter Chi as Kai
Per-syoo , or perhaps purse-yoo. The second U is a sounded one, not the germanic ooo one.
Looks like Merriam-Webster (US dictionary) gives both pronunciations, with the one you don’t like first.
I would guess then that per-soo is used in the US and Europe (where that germanic ooo is more common, eg due said as doo); in Australia (where I and the podcaster are from) you only ever hear per-syoo.
Have you cleared the orts from the tablecloth?
Sort of the reverse of the topic… I read the word “minutiae” and it took a second or two to figure out what the word was. I don’t think I have ever seen it written.
Was he speaking in Seurat or in Ingres?
[I’ll fetch me coat]
In the UK, according to YouTube we are supposed to say this word ‘Min-nyou-shai’, although I like to put a little ‘shwa’ in there somewhere: ‘min-nyou-shi-ai’.
My wife, with her Greek and Latin training, likes to say ‘min-nyou-ti-ai’, but this is not the usual way to say it.
The way you’re transcribing it makes me think you put the stress on the second syllable; I’ve always understood it to be on the first, like so: LYE-lack.
And while I accept as received wisdom that the correct pronunciation of “pwn” is “pone,” my brain always wants to insist on pronouncing it as though it’s Welsh-inspired spelling; thus, “poon.”
Never heard the nurses attending kaylasmom in the delivery room try getting away with um-bi-LYE-cus, but I bit my tongue a LOT when they kept talking about SONT-I-meters. Seriously, wtf is that?
This ties into one of my literary peeves.
Characters in books (usually older novels) are said to fall silent “for some minutes” while whoever was conversing with them waits patiently for a response. In reality of course, the other person would get impatient after 20 seconds or so and say “Well? How about it?”. I never understood why the author didn’t have the character remain silent “for some moments”.
Another vintage phrase not encountered in the wild is “brown study”, as in someone who “fell into a brown study”, meaning that they were lost in their thoughts and not paying attention. These days, you might assume the person had overindulged in Mexican food.
Yes, that was a phrase I never quite understood, but it seems to have quite a history:
They also used the word ‘hippotama’ (to describe a female hippo), with the accent on the third syllable (to rhyme with ‘She hadn’t got a ma’).
And in the next verse, ‘hippotami’ was used to describe multiple hippos, with the accent on the fourth syllable (to rhyme with ‘army’).
I wonder if the song was created as a challenge, to see if they could write a song with the most difficult base rhyme. It’s a lot of fun.