The English language pronunciation thread

[Catharsis]

swaths = swaaahths
Ibuprofen = eye-byoo-proh-fen
Gass St. = no idea
meme = meeeeeeeeem
vitamin = short i
privacy = short i (I'm from the accentless part of East Anglia so I speak BBC English as well, not sure how the discrepancy from tycoonist's pronunciation arose)
Bill3000 = short i, bil-threeee-thouw-zand
February = Feb-rurry

What about 'Wednesday'? I pronounce it 'Wed-nnns-day' with the d almost silent.

 

[Brighteye]

How do you (as in where your from not necessarily what is 'correct' since that is subjective)

pronounce swaths?


Ibuprofen

Swathe is pronounced with a long 'a' and a soft 'th'.

privacy = long
vitamin = short

that is the English way.

Privacy has a short 'i'. That people on the news have recently started saying it the American way jars my ears.

I've heard Brits say "privacy" with a short i though. Is that some kind of regional dialect or were they using incorrect pronounciation for some reason?

It's becoming regional as American influence sweeps away people's self-confidence and makes them pronounce things the way they hear, not the way they once spoke.

 

[Mirc]

It rhymes with "moths."

Re @swaths and moths:

The only combination of sounds that I'm aware of in the English language, which I'm not able to pronounce effortless in a conversation, is the "th" sound followed by an S (in other words, /θs/). For example, I have a very hard time saying "months".

Don't get me wrong - I am able to do it, but extreeeemely slow. I've seriously tried to imitate any sound and group of sounds in the English that I've heard and I've never had problems with any apart from this one. Note that I don't have a problem with the "th" sound (both varieties, /θ/ and /ð/) or with the S. Both work fine, it's just when they occur in this particular order that I find it difficult to pronounce them.

Are there any other non-native (or native, for that matter, but I doubt it) English speakers having problems with this?

 

[bathsheba666]

Swaths does not rhyme with moths. It is pronounced sway-ths.

Swathe is an alternative for Swath.

It's plural, Swathes, is an alternative for Swaths.

Swathes is pronounced sway-ths.
Swaths isn't.

 

[Harvin87]

not exactly a pronunciation question but the other day I was watching the NFL and the commentator said :

"He is one of the better WR in the NFL" . . its not supposed to be "one of the best" ?? .. I was like WTH??

 

[gugalpm]

It's a waste of time?

For someone whose life consists of playing videogames, maybe?

For someone who studies chemistry/some areas of engineering/even physics, it's very useful and quite natural.

 

[Lillefix]

not exactly a pronunciation question but the other day I was watching the NFL and the commentator said :

"He is one of the better WR in the NFL" . . its not supposed to be "one of the best" ?? .. I was like WTH??

From a Norwegian POV, I'd say that "One of the better" is weaker than "One of the best".
I would assume you have completely analogous expressions in German.

 

[Arwon]

That's right, it's weaker. "One of the better" would be "he is in the top 30%-50%" rather than "one of the best" meaning, like top 10%.

 

[Harvin87]

ohh.. I see thx.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

For someone who studies chemistry/some areas of engineering/even physics, it's very useful and quite natural.

It's meant to be put up on a wall. It must be understood, but not memorized. Because people aren't hard drives.

 

[gugalpm]

It's meant to be put up on a wall. It must be understood, but not memorized. Because people aren't hard drives.

For some people it's pretty effortless.

 

[Lillefix]

I actually learned the entire periodic table a few years. Then it occurred to me how completely pointless it was, and I forgot it.

 

[Mirc]

I actually learned the entire periodic table a few years. Then it occurred to me how completely pointless it was, and I forgot it.

Some friends and I were extremely bored during a 20-hour train trip from Bucharest to Budapest, and we happened to have a picture of the periodic table with us... So we made up a game - attempting to "recite" the table as if it were a poem in an imaginary foreign language, trying to come up with "phrasing" and ways of saying it as weirdly as possible, giving speeches, having dialogues, etc etc. I think I still remember most of it only because I repeated it at least 200 times during that trip. It was fun, but I don't think I remember where the cuts were... I mean, we made words out of the initials and I am pretty sure I'm not able to remember where the name of every element ends and where the next one begins. But still - fun!

 

[Bartleby]

I've discovered I can remember a refreshing amount of the PT. Gave up on the Lanthanides though.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I actually got my English corrected by a first generation Korean immigrant the other day. Nonetheless I shall continue to pronounce "Garbage" as "Gar" as it should be.
Edit: They censored me, that's funny.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

For some people it's pretty effortless.

Well good for them then.

Some friends and I were extremely bored during a 20-hour train trip from Bucharest to Budapest, and we happened to have a picture of the periodic table with us... So we made up a game - attempting to "recite" the table as if it were a poem in an imaginary foreign language, trying to come up with "phrasing" and ways of saying it as weirdly as possible, giving speeches, having dialogues, etc etc. I think I still remember most of it only because I repeated it at least 200 times during that trip. It was fun, but I don't think I remember where the cuts were... I mean, we made words out of the initials and I am pretty sure I'm not able to remember where the name of every element ends and where the next one begins. But still - fun!

You guys sound like fun company.

 

[tycoonist]

as for the whole privacy thing, i think that i am probably quite influenced on that one by america... that's probably the eventual direction of that word though.

 

[homeyg]

Aluminum = al - you - min - e - um

 

[say1988]

There is no e or other vowel to recieve such as sound, in aluminum

 

[scherbchen]

There is no e or other vowel to recieve such as sound, in aluminum

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