The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Natural languages and linguistics
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Raphael
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Raphael »

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 8:45 am Note that most Americans won't recognize the word 'bolognese' -- what you know as 'bolognese' we know as 'spaghetti' and the noodles by themselves are 'spaghetti noodles' to us.
Huh? How do you distinguish that from, for instance, carbonara then?
Nortaneous
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Nortaneous »

Tomato paste is crushed tomatoes in a can. You can also make it yourself. It's an ingredient in pasta sauce. "Tomato sauce" in the context of pasta specifies that the sauce on the pasta is tomato-based (not an alfredo, a vodka sauce, etc.), but as a general term I'm not sure I'd know what to expect by it.
Raphael wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 2:12 pm
Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 8:45 am Note that most Americans won't recognize the word 'bolognese' -- what you know as 'bolognese' we know as 'spaghetti' and the noodles by themselves are 'spaghetti noodles' to us.
Huh? How do you distinguish that from, for instance, carbonara then?
You can make carbonara with spaghetti [noodles], but "spaghetti" is short for "spaghetti and meatballs", although if you're making it at home you'll likely use a sauce with meat in it.
Duaj teibohnggoe kyoe' quaqtoeq lucj lhaj k'yoejdej noeyn tucj.
K'yoejdaq fohm q'ujdoe duaj teibohnggoen dlehq lucj.
Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq.
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Travis B. »

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 3:29 pm Tomato paste is crushed tomatoes in a can. You can also make it yourself. It's an ingredient in pasta sauce. "Tomato sauce" in the context of pasta specifies that the sauce on the pasta is tomato-based (not an alfredo, a vodka sauce, etc.), but as a general term I'm not sure I'd know what to expect by it.
Tomato sauce as I know it is effectively what you get if you take tomato paste and water it down to a runnier consistency. Note, though, that "a tomato sauce" means any sauce that is tomato-based, and not necessarily tomato sauce per se.
Nortaneous wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 3:29 pm
Raphael wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 2:12 pm
Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 8:45 am Note that most Americans won't recognize the word 'bolognese' -- what you know as 'bolognese' we know as 'spaghetti' and the noodles by themselves are 'spaghetti noodles' to us.
Huh? How do you distinguish that from, for instance, carbonara then?
You can make carbonara with spaghetti [noodles], but "spaghetti" is short for "spaghetti and meatballs", although if you're making it at home you'll likely use a sauce with meat in it.
To me "spaghetti" does not imply "spaghetti and meatballs", and can involve any tomato-based meat and/or veggie sauce.
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Nortaneous
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Nortaneous »

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 4:26 pm
Nortaneous wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 3:29 pm Tomato paste is crushed tomatoes in a can. You can also make it yourself. It's an ingredient in pasta sauce. "Tomato sauce" in the context of pasta specifies that the sauce on the pasta is tomato-based (not an alfredo, a vodka sauce, etc.), but as a general term I'm not sure I'd know what to expect by it.
Tomato sauce as I know it is effectively what you get if you take tomato paste and water it down to a runnier consistency.
For what purpose?
Duaj teibohnggoe kyoe' quaqtoeq lucj lhaj k'yoejdej noeyn tucj.
K'yoejdaq fohm q'ujdoe duaj teibohnggoen dlehq lucj.
Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq.
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Travis B. »

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Sat May 16, 2026 10:03 am
Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 4:26 pm
Nortaneous wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 3:29 pm Tomato paste is crushed tomatoes in a can. You can also make it yourself. It's an ingredient in pasta sauce. "Tomato sauce" in the context of pasta specifies that the sauce on the pasta is tomato-based (not an alfredo, a vodka sauce, etc.), but as a general term I'm not sure I'd know what to expect by it.
Tomato sauce as I know it is effectively what you get if you take tomato paste and water it down to a runnier consistency.
For what purpose?
As an ingredient to make tomato-based pasta sauces.
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
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chelsea
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by chelsea »

"edited it"

For me:

careful speech
[ɛɾɪtʰɪd̥ ɪʔ]

fast speech
[ɛɾɪ ɪ̰ ɪ̰]
(may have intervocalic glottal stops)
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by bradrn »

chelsea wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2026 10:59 pm "edited it"
We’ve done this one before, oddly enough: viewtopic.php?p=30959#p30959
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Travis B. »

I could not search for it on here, in case we have done this before (I suspect we may have), but how do you guys pronounce it'd, that'd, and what'd?
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
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chelsea
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by chelsea »

ɪɾɪd̚
ðæɾɪd̚
wəɾɪd̚

[d̚] can be swapped for [ʔ]

In careful speech the [d̚] would become a simple [d] (not [d̥] for some reason)
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by zompist »

chelsea wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2026 8:35 pm ɪɾɪd̚
ðæɾɪd̚
wəɾɪd̚
I think that's pretty much the phonemes I'd have.

In even moderately fast speech, however, the consonants would tend to disappear. "That'd be great!" > [ðæ bi gret]
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Travis B. »

I phonemically have /ɪd/, /ðæd/, and /wʌd/, which are nominally [ɘːt], [ðɛːt], and [wʌːt] but the final /d/ can be any of [t], [ɾ], gemination of a following consonant, or 0. Also /ð/ here can be any of [ð], [d̪ð], [d̪], [t̪], [n̪], [d], [t], [s], or [z]. I never preserve the historical medial /t/; it feels like quite a mouthful to attempt to pronounce it here, actually.
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
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alice
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by alice »

Here's one which I hope hasn't come up before: fungi. For me it's /fʌn.gai/, but I've noticed that others have /ʤ/ or /i:/.
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Raphael »

Different question: Short or long vowel in "Sikh"?
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Travis B. »

alice wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2026 2:30 pm Here's one which I hope hasn't come up before: fungi. For me it's /fʌn.gai/, but I've noticed that others have /ʤ/ or /i:/.
I too have /ˈfʌnɡaɪ/.
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Travis B. »

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2026 2:56 pm Different question: Short or long vowel in "Sikh"?
I have /sik/ [s̟iʔk], so the vowel is realized phonetically as short but is a historically long (synchronically tense) vowel.
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Richard W »

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2026 2:56 pm Different question: Short or long vowel in "Sikh"?
Long - homophonous with seek.
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by zompist »

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2026 2:56 pm Different question: Short or long vowel in "Sikh"?
My dictionary (American Heritage) has /sik/. Ironically, (Indian) Sikhs say /sɪkʰ/, after the Punjabi.
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Raphael
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Raphael »

Thank you, Travis, Richard, and zompist! I got the idea to ask when I saw this classic TV comedy sketch - I could only find it on Tiktok, not on Youtube - where several fictional characters who are members of the same fictional family seem to pronounce it differently (though that's not the joke there): https://www.tiktok.com/@ukcomedyshows/v ... 1949091077
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by lëtzeshark »

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2026 9:39 am I could not search for it on here, in case we have done this before (I suspect we may have), but how do you guys pronounce it'd, that'd, and what'd?
it'd: [ˈɪtʰɨd͉]
that'd: [ˈðætʰɨd͉]
what'd: [ˈwʌtʰɨd͉]

(I don't normally have [ɾ] for intervocalic /t/ or /d/: there's too much contact of my tongue with my palate to be /ɾ/. However, it's been established my English is strange.)
Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2026 3:19 pm
alice wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2026 2:30 pm Here's one which I hope hasn't come up before: fungi. For me it's /fʌn.gai/, but I've noticed that others have /ʤ/ or /i:/.
I too have /ˈfʌnɡaɪ/.
Same here, pretty much: no [d͡ʒ] or [iː].

I have two myself that I'm curious about: Clermont-Ferrand and Wageningen, two cities I lived in. (I'm so used to the local pronunciations that I'm not sure entirely how they'd be "properly" pronounced in English!)
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As a result, for me, the former is [klɛʀmɔ̃fɛʀɑ̃] and the latter [ˈvaɣnɪŋə], sometimes [vʌˈd͡ʒaɪ̯nəgɪn] as a joke. I'm really also not sure the difference between [v] and [ʋ], and most people from Tulipland couldn't tell me the difference. :P
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Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Travis B. »

zompist wrote: ↑Wed Aug 05, 2026 6:32 am
Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2026 2:56 pm Different question: Short or long vowel in "Sikh"?
My dictionary (American Heritage) has /sik/. Ironically, (Indian) Sikhs say /sɪkʰ/, after the Punjabi.
The problem is that /ɪ/ in loans isn't foreign enough, so if a loan isn't from another Germanic language we have to make it more foreign by tensing it to /i/.
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
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