Zompist Bboard Again

The word "inflammable" is dangerous because there are people who think it means "not flammable". It is always best to use "flammable".

It probably did rhyme with "wounds" back when the word was oridinarily used. However it is not regularly used today and as a consequence of this, a spelling pronunciation developed. Is that definitely the case? The old English was wund /wund/, which would undergo homorganic lengthening to...

Question of a non-native English speaker: Does zounds rhyme with sounds for you, or with wounds ? I would pronounce "zounds" to rhyme with "sounds" and that is all I have ever heard. However, "zounds" is an archaic word not used in ordinary modern speech. I have always...

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Sat Mar 07, 2026 1:16 pm Question of a non-native English speaker: Does zounds rhyme with sounds for you, or with wounds?

I would pronounce "zounds" to rhyme with "sounds" and that is all I have ever heard. However, "zounds" is an archaic word not used in ordinary modern speech.

For British people, do you pronounce "February" like "Febry"? I have heard this plenty of times from British people on TV and the radio.

There's the slang use of the word "bad" in English to mean that something is good.

On the second entry for "whist" at dictionary.com it is defined as "another word for while while while while while". Why is "while" said five times in the definition? It seems strange.

These are part of a whole range of expressions NP + PP. I'm guessing that you'd reject at least some of these possible plurals: attorney generals man-at-arms lady-in-waitings man of Gods Man in Blacks punch in the noses It's not very surprising that over centuries, lexicalized NP+PPs may be reanaly...

How do you pluralize "father-in-law" and other "X-in-law" words? Dictionaries say the plural is "fathers-in-law", but I say "father-in-laws".

I have heard some people use the abbreviation "bday" for "birthday" in speech. It always sounds strange to me when used in speech.

I once knew someone who lacked the pin-pen merger in their speech, but they pronounced "again" to rhyme with "win". In the opposite direction, I once heard someone who lacked the pin-pen merger who pronounced "since" with the DRESS vowel sounding exactly like how they w...

I just looked up "stint" in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary and if the scroll down to the medical dictionary it says "variant of stent".

How did the word "library" get the meaning that it has in English? In every other European language with a similar looking and sounding word, it means instead what we call a "book store" or "book shop".

I pronounce "Halloween" like in "hallow". The other pronunciation may have originated by analogy with "hollow", although the word "Halloween" has no etymological relation to "hollow". In cot-caught merged varieties, it may also result from spelling ...

I pronounce "Halloween" like in "hallow". The other pronunciation may have originated by analogy with "hollow", although the word "Halloween" has no etymological relation to "hollow".

How do you pronounce?

"maintenance"
"broccoli"
"grocery"
"camera"

I have medial schwa elision in all of those.

How do you pronounce "cabinet"? I pronounce it with two syllables "cab net". Interesting. I could vision such an extreme reduction of unstressed vowels, but I wouldn't expect it in "cabinet". If I were to reduce the second vowel that much, I think it would still be thr...

How do you pronounce "cabinet"? I pronounce it with two syllables "cab net".

The words "tomorrow", "borrow", and "sorrow" likely resisted the shift from the LOT vowel to the NORTH vowel for most Americans that occurred in words like "forest" and "horrible" because the resulting vowel would be really close to the last vowel in...

I pronounce "sorry" like "sari".

What about:

"sorrow"
"tomorrow"
"borrow"