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The Strange Case of the English Language

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  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    Pronunciation where, and by whom?

    Unlike French English has no pronunciation police. Regional and class variation has always been considered normal.
    Sanctifer
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited August 2016
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    Post edited by [Deleted User] on
    BelgarathMTH
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    One of the reasons for the decline in rhyming poetry is that they often cease to rhyme when read in an accent different to the poet's.
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    Mr2150 said:

    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.
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    So, what is a sneek peak?
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    Fardragon said:

    So, what is a sneek peak?

    This:

    JuliusBorisovCrevsDaak
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    And a sneak peke?

    You need to find a picture of a very small ninja dog.
    JuliusBorisov
  • bob_vengbob_veng Member Posts: 2,308
    US spelling deviation from -l double consonant is really ugly imho. i'll never get used to it.
  • BillyYankBillyYank Member Posts: 2,768
    From a news story today:
    ...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!
    bob_veng
  • bob_vengbob_veng Member Posts: 2,308
    lol

    now antiprescriptivists-permissivists will say it's just fine to say it runs the gambit because you obviously understood what he meant
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • bob_vengbob_veng Member Posts: 2,308
    to bad it can't really be pronounced as a natural sounding word, to many OU diphthongs at the end split it apart
    CrevsDaak
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited October 2017
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  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    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.
    [Deleted User]
  • AnduinAnduin Member Posts: 5,745
    edited October 2017
    I teach phonics. Calm down @Shandaxx

    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! )
    [Deleted User]lolien
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    The longer O sound can be heard easier (for curious native English speakers) if you pluralize the words.

    The polls are in.
    The poles are in.

    Anduin[Deleted User]lolien
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037
    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).
    ArdanisAnduin[Deleted User]lolien
  • bob_vengbob_veng Member Posts: 2,308
    in us english poll and pole sound the same (check here http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/cmudict?in=poll and here https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=pole which are the best sources for american pronounciations)

    in british english they might sound different, like in the video. there 'pole' doesn't have the diphthong but an elongated O sound instead.
    [Deleted User]
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    bob_veng said:

    in us english poll and pole sound the same (check here http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/cmudict?in=poll and here https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=pole which are the best sources for american pronounciations)

    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'm British, and I pronounce them as exact homophones. Of course, not everyone in Britain (or anywhere else) has the same accent.
    Anduin[Deleted User]
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    edited October 2017
    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.

    Trivia time: "polish" is the only English word which is pronounced differently depending upon its capitalization.

    If we're including names I would imagine there are lots of such words, e.g. Coke (pronounced cook).
    AnduinMathsorcerer[Deleted User]
  • bob_vengbob_veng Member Posts: 2,308
    Fardragon said:

    bob_veng said:

    in us english poll and pole sound the same (check here http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/cmudict?in=poll and here https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=pole which are the best sources for american pronounciations)

    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'm British, and I pronounce them as exact homophones. Of course, not everyone in Britain (or anywhere else) has the same accent.
    i agree. the video is really stupid basically.
    Anduin[Deleted User]
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037
    Fardragon said:


    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 cite as evidence this sentence:

    Polish the table.

    hrm...good point. I never thought of that.
    semiticgoddess[Deleted User]lolien
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited October 2017
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  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    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.
    ThacoBell
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