Pronunciations you had to unlearn

[Space60]

Cambridge English Dictionary has LOT for wash and wasp for its "UK" pronunciations. (Note that I take this with a grain of salt as its "US" pronunciations are cot-caught merged...)

Cambridge Dictionary doesn't do a very good job of representing US pronunciations. They list the US pronunciation of "was", "what", "from" and "of" as having LOT/PALM and the US pronunciation of "tomorrow" as having NORTH/FORCE.

I hate the fact that practically all dictionaries that give separate "US" and "UK" pronunciations give cot-caught-merged "US" pronunciations, as a majority of Americans are not cot-caught merged.

Something I have wondered about is exactly what percentage of Americans have the cot-caught merger. Old surveys said 40%, but they were done more than 20 years ago. I would think it is closer to 50% now.

[Travis B.]

Something I have wondered about is exactly what percentage of Americans have the cot-caught merger. Old surveys said 40%, but they were done more than 20 years ago. I would think it is closer to 50% now.

Even if that were the case, if you were writing a dictionary, would it not make sense to overspecify distinctions rather than underspecify them (because merging them is easy, unmerging them when the distinctions are not written down is not)?

[anteallach]

Something I have wondered about is exactly what percentage of Americans have the cot-caught merger. Old surveys said 40%, but they were done more than 20 years ago. I would think it is closer to 50% now.

Even if that were the case, if you were writing a dictionary, would it not make sense to overspecify distinctions rather than underspecify them (because merging them is easy, unmerging them when the distinctions are not written down is not)?

If it consoles you their British pronunciations also take a very narrow view of British English...

[Travis B.]

Something I have wondered about is exactly what percentage of Americans have the cot-caught merger. Old surveys said 40%, but they were done more than 20 years ago. I would think it is closer to 50% now.

Even if that were the case, if you were writing a dictionary, would it not make sense to overspecify distinctions rather than underspecify them (because merging them is easy, unmerging them when the distinctions are not written down is not)?

If it consoles you their British pronunciations also take a very narrow view of British English...

How am I not surprised...

[Linguoboy]

Both the normative UK pronunciation of "Azores" (/əˈzɔːz/) and the normative US pronunciation (/ˈeɪzɔːɹz/) sound terrible to me. I'm going to keep giving it a pseudo-Portuguese pronunciation (/əˈzɔːɹiz/) and to hell if people think that sounds "pretentious".

[Raphael]

Is that pseudo-Portuguese as in mainland Portuguese, or as in the dialect of the islands themselves? Or are the differences between those two too small to really be noticed?

[Travis B.]

Both the normative UK pronunciation of "Azores" (/əˈzɔːz/) and the normative US pronunciation (/ˈeɪzɔːɹz/) sound terrible to me. I'm going to keep giving it a pseudo-Portuguese pronunciation (/əˈzɔːɹiz/) and to hell if people think that sounds "pretentious".

I have always thought they were /əˈzɔrz/, and I cannot recall hearing that with /eɪ/ myself.

[Linguoboy]

Is that pseudo-Portuguese as in mainland Portuguese, or as in the dialect of the islands themselves? Or are the differences between those two too small to really be noticed?

Supposedly they have a pronounced accent, but I'm having no luck finding descriptions of it.

The Azorean man interviewed in this video has a strong accent, but unless you're already familiar with a standard European Portuguese accent, I don't know that you'll get much from it. (I'm mostly noticing a lot of consonant elisions; note--if you can--how he says "sempre" and "atrapalhados", for example.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7efyRaaTUU

(BTW. the reason I say "pseudo-Portuguese" is that the standard European Portuguese pronunciation would be [ɐˈsoɾɨʃ], which would likely not be understood by the average English-speaker.)

[Raphael]

Thank you!

[anteallach]

Both the normative UK pronunciation of "Azores" (/əˈzɔːz/) and the normative US pronunciation (/ˈeɪzɔːɹz/) sound terrible to me. I'm going to keep giving it a pseudo-Portuguese pronunciation (/əˈzɔːɹiz/) and to hell if people think that sounds "pretentious".

It actually seems a bit surprising that the UK pronunciation doesn't end in /iːz/ given that it's closer to the Portuguese pronunciation and that so many island group names, including even our own Hebrides, do.

Speaking of which, the classical feel of Hebrides always seems a bit odd to me. The Gaelic is Innse Gall (islands of the foreigners) and those foreigners themselves (the Vikings) called them the Suðreyjar (southern islands, which makes more sense if you're coming via Orkney and Shetland) which is the origin of Sodor as in the Diocese of Sodor and Man, and thus the name of the fictional island.

[foxcatdog]

Both the normative UK pronunciation of "Azores" (/əˈzɔːz/) and the normative US pronunciation (/ˈeɪzɔːɹz/) sound terrible to me. I'm going to keep giving it a pseudo-Portuguese pronunciation (/əˈzɔːɹiz/) and to hell if people think that sounds "pretentious".

I always asume it was pronounced /əˈzɔːɹeiz/

[Estav]

(BTW. the reason I say "pseudo-Portuguese" is that the standard European Portuguese pronunciation would be [ɐˈsoɾɨʃ], which would likely not be understood by the average English-speaker.)

Interesting, I was confused by the [s] and then found out that Portuguese uses the spelling Açores. I guess that means the English spelling is taken from Spanish (that's what Wiktionary says anyway).

[Space60]

Cambridge Dictionary doesn't do a very good job of representing US pronunciations. They list the US pronunciation of "was", "what", "from" and "of" as having LOT/PALM and the US pronunciation of "tomorrow" as having NORTH/FORCE.

I hate the fact that practically all dictionaries that give separate "US" and "UK" pronunciations give cot-caught-merged "US" pronunciations, as a majority of Americans are not cot-caught merged.

Something I have wondered about is exactly what percentage of Americans have the cot-caught merger. Old surveys said 40%, but they were done more than 20 years ago. I would think it is closer to 50% now.

The Midland United States is a transitional region regarding the cot-caught merger. Not completely merged, but not completely distinct. People in that region who do make the distinction often have a subtle roundedness difference between the vowels.

[jal]

From the how do you pronounce thread, I pronounced "severity" wrong (with /I/ because of severe).


JAL

[jal]

And another one I was kinda familiar with, but also kinda forgot: ascertain. Used to pronounce the last part like "certain" as a spelling pronunciation. I sometimes still do :D.


JAL

[WarpedWartWars]

And another one I was kinda familiar with, but also kinda forgot: ascertain. Used to pronounce the last part like "certain" as a spelling pronunciation. I sometimes still do .

Same here.

[Raphael]

There are probably too many English words containing the letter sequence "ow" where I keep having to remind myself that it's pronounced like in "crowd" and not like in "bowling" for me to list them all.

[Raphael]

I just heard the word "niche" pronounced in an English-language video for the first time. What, the vowel is short when the word is used in English? I would never have guessed that.

[anteallach]

I just heard the word "niche" pronounced in an English-language video for the first time. What, the vowel is short when the word is used in English? I would never have guessed that.

There's a UK/US difference here. I have /niːʃ/.

[Travis B.]

I just heard the word "niche" pronounced in an English-language video for the first time. What, the vowel is short when the word is used in English? I would never have guessed that.

There's a UK/US difference here. I have /niːʃ/.

To me both /nɪtʃ/ and /niːʃ/ are equally valid pronunciations of niche.