I'm surprised nobody did this yet... I had a quick check and couldn't see it...
How do you pronounce...
GHOTI
...
FISH...
Yup, GHOTI is pronounced as FISH...
Are you sure you want to know why?
Really sure?
Which is wrong of course. GH never makes an "f" sound on it's own. The sound is produced by the letter string, not the individual letters. English isn't German.
"Women" rhyming with "swimming" is an example of a regional variation. Plenty of people pronounce it differently.
The pronunciation difference is largely irrelevant, as the only way anybody would actually tell one from the other is through context, not pronunciation.
The "l" in poll is imperceptibly shorter than the one in pole. And I believe the "oo" part of the "oh" sound is less pronounced in poll.
Okay. You have in poll an o representing a shortening of a longer phoneme.
Instead of the o sound you have in pop or log, you have the o representing the oa sound you find in road or shoal. I don't think ryhming helps in this case as poll rhymes with foal, shoal, goal, bowl, soul , pole mole (and of course toll and roll!)
It is a shorter sound than you would find in pole I think... read on
Pole is the basic magic e changing the o sound into its vowel sound as in hop becomes hope. The vowel sound o does seem to get mangled in this rule. So pole along with hole (which in both cases can be pronounced howel and powel (as in vowel, becomes more pronounced in northern Britain))
I would say poll and pole rhyme. Yet my wife clearly would not because she has a different accent and is unafraid to extend that o vowel sound in pole.
I could also be speaking ball locks. As I have wrote this as my interpretation. I will get back to my grammer books next time I'm in class to check for a concrete answer (you have aroused a curiosity! )
Trivia time: "polish" is the only English word which is pronounced differently depending upon its capitalization.
"polish" -- the o has an "ah" sound, as in "I will polish the floors" (p*ah*lish)
"Polish" -- the o is long and refers to someone from Poland, as in "my neighbor's grandfather is Polish" (p*oh*lish).
I would disagree that the change in pronunciation is "because" of the capitalisation. I would argue that the change in pronunciation is due to the context, similar to bow (in your hair) and bow (to the heir).
If we're talking about an opinion poll for me there would be a difference, but only marginal. Of course, like so many words in English, poll has multiple meanings. If we're referring for instance to hornless cattle I would pronounce poll to rhyme with doll and not hole.
I would disagree that the change in pronunciation is "because" of the capitalisation. I would argue that the change in pronunciation is due to the context, similar to bow (in your hair) and bow (to the heir).
I can tell you that in the United States, "poll" and "pole" are pronounced the same, rhyming with "mole". I know next to nothing about Canadian or British dialects.
Comments
Unlike French English has no pronunciation police. Regional and class variation has always been considered normal.
How do you pronounce...
GHOTI
...FISH...
Yup, GHOTI is pronounced as FISH...
Are you sure you want to know why?
Really sure?
"Women" rhyming with "swimming" is an example of a regional variation. Plenty of people pronounce it differently.
You need to find a picture of a very small ninja dog.
"Yes, English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though."
...Feinberg says there's no way to guess. "It runs the gambit," he explains.
No, it does not run the effing gambit. It runs the gamut, dammit!
now antiprescriptivists-permissivists will say it's just fine to say it runs the gambit because you obviously understood what he meant
The "l" in poll is imperceptibly shorter than the one in pole. And I believe the "oo" part of the "oh" sound is less pronounced in poll.
Okay. You have in poll an o representing a shortening of a longer phoneme.
Instead of the o sound you have in pop or log, you have the o representing the oa sound you find in road or shoal. I don't think ryhming helps in this case as poll rhymes with foal, shoal, goal, bowl, soul , pole mole (and of course toll and roll!)
It is a shorter sound than you would find in pole I think... read on
Pole is the basic magic e changing the o sound into its vowel sound as in hop becomes hope. The vowel sound o does seem to get mangled in this rule. So pole along with hole (which in both cases can be pronounced howel and powel (as in vowel, becomes more pronounced in northern Britain))
I would say poll and pole rhyme. Yet my wife clearly would not because she has a different accent and is unafraid to extend that o vowel sound in pole.
I could also be speaking ball locks. As I have wrote this as my interpretation. I will get back to my grammer books next time I'm in class to check for a concrete answer (you have aroused a curiosity! )
The polls are in.
The poles are in.
"polish" -- the o has an "ah" sound, as in "I will polish the floors" (p*ah*lish)
"Polish" -- the o is long and refers to someone from Poland, as in "my neighbor's grandfather is Polish" (p*oh*lish).
in british english they might sound different, like in the video. there 'pole' doesn't have the diphthong but an elongated O sound instead.
I cite as evidence this sentence:
Polish the table.