Pronunciations you had to unlearn

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Yes, the word sounds more like Arcansaugh, which is confusing, since Kansas sounds about like you would expect it to.

[jal]

TIL the final s in Arkansas is silent.

Oh my god! You're telling me you have completely missed this viral video five years ago??? (YouTube link)


JAL

[Pabappa]

the linguistics terms phonemic, morphemic, graphemic all rhyme with anemic and not with systemic, and likewise phonemic (the original) does not have the vowel of phonetic.

[Travis B.]

Velar actually has /iː/ and not /ɛ/.

[Imralu]

Velar actually has /iː/ and not /ɛ/.

Yeah, I learnt that a while back and I just refuse. Same with alveolar, which is /æl.ˈviː.ə.ləʳ/ or even /æl.ˈvɪə.ləʳ/ but, no, to me it will always be /æl.vi.ˈoʊ.ləʳ/. If I pronounced them both correctly, alveolar would basically merge with "our velar". For me "our" is just /aʊʳ/ [æo̯] with no vocalic trace of the /r/ unless it's revived by epenthesis before a following vowel, /l/ vocalises easily ... I seldom vocalise it myself but I barely hear the difference between Aldi and Audi with an Australian accent. Even /l/ in between vowels makes it hard for me to distinguish a schwa in front of it because it causes a bit of a schwa on the end of front vowels. I will continue to say these in silly ways in my head.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I've just recently learnt that obfuscate is /ɒbfəskeit/, and not /ɒbfjuːskeit/, as I have pronounced it mentally since I first encountered it. I think I write it with some frequency, but rarely actually say it.

[Travis B.]

Velar actually has /iː/ and not /ɛ/.

Yeah, I learnt that a while back and I just refuse. Same with alveolar, which is /æl.ˈviː.ə.ləʳ/ or even /æl.ˈvɪə.ləʳ/ but, no, to me it will always be /æl.vi.ˈoʊ.ləʳ/.

To me alveolar has always been [ɛːɤ̯ˈviːːɰʁ̩ˤ(ː)]; this might be underlyingly /ælˈviːələr/ though, hence the overlong vowel.

If I pronounced them both correctly, alveolar would basically merge with "our velar". For me "our" is just /aʊʳ/ [æo̯] with no vocalic trace of the /r/ unless it's revived by epenthesis before a following vowel, /l/ vocalises easily ... I seldom vocalise it myself but I barely hear the difference between Aldi and Audi with an Australian accent. Even /l/ in between vowels makes it hard for me to distinguish a schwa in front of it because it causes a bit of a schwa on the end of front vowels. I will continue to say these in silly ways in my head.

I have /l/ vocalization but the only cases where I lose the /l/ are in a few words such as already, all right, always, and Milwaukee. (The pronunciation of Milwaukee is a good shibboleth as to whether you are from southeastern Wisconsin.) For instance, I normally contrast /ɔː/ and /ɔːl/ as [ɒ] and [ɒo̯].

[jal]

I've just recently learnt that obfuscate is /ɒbfəskeit/, and not /ɒbfjuːskeit/

Apparently, I just learned that :shock:


JAL

[StrangerCoug]

TIL that egad is stressed on the second syllable, not the first.

[jal]

TIL that egad is stressed on the second syllable, not the first.

That's a ridiculously obscure word :D.


JAL

[StrangerCoug]

Yeah, not a minced oath you really hear anymore. One of the signs that Calvin's snowmen hold up in a Calvin and Hobbes strip is probably where I got it from to begin with.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

TIL that egad is stressed on the second syllable, not the first.

That's a ridiculously obscure word .


JAL

Is it?

[Pabappa]

Yeah, not a minced oath you really hear anymore. One of the signs that Calvin's snowmen hold up in a Calvin and Hobbes strip is probably where I got it from to begin with.

same here .... I think it was also used in Archie Comics, and so I just sort of assumed it was common but never used it because I avoid even the euphemisms for words like that .... but now that I think of it, I can't think of a place where I've heard or read it used outside of comic books.

supine .... not something I had wrong, but oddly enough Wiktionary considers the final-stress version the predominant pronunciation in the US, and offhand I cant think of any other words where the -ine ending is stressed. Heard it on Jeopardy earlier today.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Saying it with the second syllable stressed makes it sound like a verb, probably meaning "to make somebody lie supine, to knock down flat".

[jal]

Is it?

Yes it is :D.


JAL

[Linguoboy]

Is it?

Yes it is .

Disagree. There's even a Muppet on Sesame Street who has it as his catchphrase.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Hemlock

[Rounin Ryuuji]

That question was more an expression of surprise at the idea of the word being obscure — I've known the word for ages (probably because of the Muppet, but also Mario character E. Gadd, and older people saying it); it isn't commonly said, but I think it's widely-known.

[jal]

but I think it's widely-known

It might very well be, I'm not a native speaker. But I've heard and read quite a bit of English, and I've never encountered it. Google also calls it "archaic".


JAL

[Linguoboy]

but I think it's widely-known

It might very well be, I'm not a native speaker. But I've heard and read quite a bit of English, and I've never encountered it. Google also calls it "archaic".

What do you mean “Google calls it archaic”? There’s no lexicographical resource associated with Google. (Unless you count n-grams, but those don’t incorporate usage labels.)

Moreover, a word can be “archaic” without being obscure. “Thy” is archaic but it’s a word I’d expect every fluent speaker to recognise (even if they don’t know the proper usage of it).

[Ares Land]

I didn't know that word; but I knew the variant egads. (Now, where did I read that one?)

The OED says it's rare.

This word belongs in Frequency Band 2. Band 2 contains words which occur fewer than 0.01 times per million words in typical modern English usage. These are almost exclusively terms which are not part of normal discourse and would be unknown to most people.

I suppose Sesame Street isn't in their corpus. (Their loss. If Sesame Street isn't typical modern English, then what is?)

It's funny how children's television (and books, and songs) are often harder, for non-natives, than more literary or technical material. (I remember back in 2007 when everyone puzzled over hallows.)