The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[TurkeySloth]

Some people have /aw/ in 'aural', presumably a combination of spelling pronunciation and an attempt to disambiguate.

Alternatively, there's the OW vowel, which is only known if one has exposure to Latin pronunciation.

Or the majority of dialects of English except Scottish?

Silly boy, I was referencing the fact that the OW vowel is unusual for, at least, my dialect, which merges "aural," "oral," and "Orel." I'm only aware of *au [au] because of my exposure to Latin.

[Zaarin]

Alternatively, there's the OW vowel, which is only known if one has exposure to Latin pronunciation.

Or the majority of dialects of English except Scottish?

Silly boy, I was referencing the fact that the OW vowel is unusual for, at least, my dialect, which merges "aural," "oral," and "Orel." I'm only aware of *au [au] because of my exposure to Latin.

Ah, I thought you meant /ou/ by OW, in which case that is the usual realization of "long O" in most dialects. However, <au> /au/ is not entirely foreign to Americans at least thanks to our many German immigrants with German names (though sometimes these still end up /ɒ/, as in gauss or the brand name Braun). But there's still Strauss, haus, etc.

For me, I have /ɒ/ in aural and /ou/ in oral and Orel (though phonetically that's [ɔ] before a liquid).

[mèþru]

/au/ occurs all the time where I live. It's the usual for vowel of <ou>/<ow> (I notice people from North Jersey pronounce it as a monophthong though). But <aural> has neither.

I just noticed I pronounce it going slightly higher in the middle than in the beginning and dives deep in the closure.

[Travis B.]

I think yangfiretiger means that /aʊ/ in aural is highly unusual and probably only found in the speech of people trying to emulate Latin pronunciation. (I for one have never heard anyone try to pronounce aural this way.)

[Space60]

How do you pronounce?

"Merry Christmas"

"Santa Claus"

"Rudolph the red nosed reindeer"

[Travis B.]

Merry Christmas: [ˌmɛːʁiˈkʰʁ̥ɘsʲmɘs]
Santa Claus: [ˈsɛ̃(ɾ̃)əˌkʰʟ̞̊ɒːs]~[ˈsɛ̃(ɾ̃)əˌkʰɰ̊ɒːs]
Rudolph the red nosed reindeer: [ˈʁʷuːˌdɒ(o̯)f θəː ˈʁʷɜ̃ːnˌnosʲtʲ ˈʁʷẽːnˌdɪːʁ]

[jal]

"Merry Christmas"

[ˈhæpɪ ˈhɒlideɪz]


JAL

[Travis B.]

[ˌhɛpiˈhɑːɰɘːˌdeːs]

But seriously, I do celebrate Christmas despite being an atheist. This is probably in part due to both my parents' families celebrating Christmas even though my parents themselves are ex-Catholic and ex-Lutheran, and probably in part due to the overwhelming pervasiveness of Christmas in American society at this time of the year even for the purely secular.

It probably is not too late for me to acquire an aluminum pole, though.

[Imralu]

[ˈmɛɹʷɪ̆i̯ kʰɹʷɪsməs]
[ˌsæːn(t)ɪˈkʰloːz] (the [ɪ] is my realisation of /ə/ before [k])
[ˈɹʷʉːdɔɯ̯f ðə ˈɹʷɛdˌnɐʉ̯zd ˈɹʷæɪ̯nˌdɪː(ɐ̯)]

As an atheist, I still celebrate Christmas (badly) just because it's tradition ... also, nothing that I've ever done for Christmas is really Christian. Trees, presents, santa, whatever ... none of it is owned by Christianity. I've never had a nativity scene or done an advent calendar or anything like that. (What's the verb with advent calendar? Do you do them?) I mean, since I've moved out of home, I've never once had a tree or anything, and Christmas is usually a tough time being on the other side of the world and partially estranged from my family and usually most of my friends are out of town and it's just a few hours of dim light, but I still kind of like Christmas somehow.

[alynnidalar]

(What's the verb with advent calendar? Do you do them?)

Open, perhaps?

[Linguoboy]

(What's the verb with advent calendar? Do you do them?)

Open, perhaps?

It might depend on the type of calendar. The one we had growing up was made of felt in the form of a Christmas tree. Each day, we would remove an ornament from a numbered pocket below the tree and hang it. We spoke of "doing an ornament" or "doing the calendar".

[HazelFiver]

Does anyone else pronounce "experiment" with /iː/ for the second vowel? I haven't found this anywhere. I already know I don't speak proper English, and I've given up trying to. Just wondering.

[Pabappa]

Yes, I do, but with the glide into the /r/ the actual audible vowel isn't far off of /I/ or even / E/.

[Salmoneus]

Does anyone else pronounce "experiment" with /iː/ for the second vowel? I haven't found this anywhere. I already know I don't speak proper English, and I've given up trying to. Just wondering.

I haven't heard this.

[TurkeySloth]

Does anyone else pronounce "experiment" with /iː/ for the second vowel? I haven't found this anywhere. I already know I don't speak proper English, and I've given up trying to. Just wondering.

Yes. /iː/ would be weird as the third vowel, not the second. Typically, my vowels are [ɛ] [i(ː)] [ɪ] [ɪ].

[bbbosborne]

Does anyone else pronounce "experiment" with /iː/ for the second vowel? I haven't found this anywhere. I already know I don't speak proper English, and I've given up trying to. Just wondering.

somewhat:
[eksˈpʰi̯ɚmɛːntʰ]

[Salmoneus]

Is this a lexical weirdness for just this word, for all you people, or is it a general trait of, for instance, prerhotic vowels?


[For me, /E/, /E/, /I/ and /E/, although the first, third and fourth can be schwa; if I had to lengthen the second vowel, it would be to /E@/, not to /I@/.]

[Travis B.]

Does anyone else pronounce "experiment" with /iː/ for the second vowel? I haven't found this anywhere. I already know I don't speak proper English, and I've given up trying to. Just wondering.

My parents and I have /æ/~/ɛ/~/e/ while my daughter has /ɪ/~/i/; note that the dialect here does not distinguish /æ/, /ɛ/, and /e/ (realized as [ɛ]~[ɛ̝]) or /ɪ/ and /i/ (realized as [ɪ]) before /r/.

[Estav]

Is this a lexical weirdness for just this word, for all you people, or is it a general trait of, for instance, prerhotic vowels?

I'd imagine it's largely because of the ambiguity (or at least, opacity) of the spelling "e, single consonant letter, vowel letter", along with analogy with the pronunciation of "experience". Outside of dialects with a general merger between Er~er/ir~Ir, I haven't heard of ir~Ir being used in words with other spelling patterns such as "cherry" or "merry" ("merriment"); "carry", "marry"; "Mary", "hairy" etc. There are a number of other words with "erV" spellings that show variation between "short e" and "long e" pronunciations—enough that I have wondered if it should be considered a special environment (feral; coherent, adherent, inherent; hysteria; sclera, era, Hera, Eris, Eros, query; stereo-, steroid; atmospheric/spherical). Although ir~Ir is "regular" in a certain sense for all but the last of these, I doubt that the relevant rules are really active in modern English morphophonology, so I would say that they could all be classified as showing the same kind of variation. But "erV" might not be a special environment, as we see somewhat similar variation between "long e" and "short e" before other consonants (e.g. methane, epoch) or variation between other "long" and "short" vowels (e.g. "apical").

[Linguoboy]

I don't have a general merger, but I may have a merger in progress because /er/ (like Travis, I don't distinguish /ɛr/ and /er/) overlaps with /ir/ (ditto, mutatis mutandis) in that both sequences can be realised as [ɪɚ̯]. I've been aware of this for years (my ex frequently complained about it) but I have been able to discern any conditioning of the variants.

That said, experiment has /ir/, probably due to the force of analogy mentioned by Estav.