The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[Travis B.]

Bernanke [bɚˈnæɪ̯ŋki] ~ [bɚˈneəŋki] (I've heard both; I think closer transcriptions would be [b̥ɚˈnæ̃ɪ̯̃ŋk̟(ʰ)ˑi] and [b̥ɚˈnẽˑə̯̃ŋk̟ʰi])

[b̥ʁ̩̃ˤːˈnɛ̃(ŋ)ci(ː)]~[b̥ʁ̩̃ˤːˈnɛ̃ə̃(ŋ)ci(ː)]~[b̥ʁ̩̃ˤːˈnẽə̃(ŋ)ci(ː)]

[Space60]

How do you pronounce?

"length"
"strength"
"penguin"
"Jenkins"

[Znex]

How do you pronounce?

"length"
"strength"
"penguin"
"Jenkins"

[ɫɛ~ŋ(ɡ̊)θ]
[sʈʂɻʷɛ~ŋ(ɡ̊)θ]
[pʰɛ~ɡ̊wɪn]
[d̥ʒ̊ɛ~kɨnz̥]

[anteallach]

How do you pronounce?

"length"
"strength"
"penguin"
"Jenkins"

[lɛŋkθ]
[ʂtʂɹɛŋkθ]
[ˈpɛŋgwɪn]
[ˈdʒɛŋkɪnz]
(broad transcription, obviously)

[Raphael]

How do you pronounce "ultra"?

And just in case we've got anyone from Ireland here, how do you pronounce the acronym "GUBU"?

[Travis B.]

length: [ʟ̞ẽ̞ŋkθ]~[ɰẽ̞ŋkθ]
strength: [ɕtɕẽ̞ŋkθ]
penguin: [ˈpʰɜ̃ːŋɡʷwɘ̃(ː)(n)]
Jenkins: [ˈtʃɜ̃ŋkɘ̃ːnts]

[Travis B.]

How do you pronounce "ultra"?

[ˈɒʊtʃɻʁə(ː)], i.e. with THOUGHT. Note that [ɻʁ] is coarticulated but the X-SAMPA/IPA converter I use refuses to put a tie bar above them.

[Darren]

How do you pronounce "ultra"?

[ɔu̯(ɫʷ)tʃɹɜ], with the GOAL vowel. Generally /ʌl/ ends up being [ɔu̯ɫʷ] for me except word-finally.

[Raphael]

Thank you, interesting. If I tried to pronounce "ultra" in English, I'd probably use either the CUT vowel or the PUT vowel for the u.

[anteallach]

Thank you, interesting. If I tried to pronounce "ultra" in English, I'd probably use either the CUT vowel or the PUT vowel for the u.

It's STRUT for me, but a lot of accents merge various vowels before /l/, especially if the /l/ is followed by an obstruent. My guess is that most English speakers, including Darren and Travis, use the same vowel in ultra as they do in cult or pulse or multiply.

[Travis B.]

Thank you, interesting. If I tried to pronounce "ultra" in English, I'd probably use either the CUT vowel or the PUT vowel for the u.

It's STRUT for me, but a lot of accents merge various vowels before /l/, especially if the /l/ is followed by an obstruent. My guess is that most English speakers, including Darren and Travis, use the same vowel in ultra as they do in cult or pulse or multiply.

I personally have THOUGHT in ultra, ultimate, multi- (including multiply), gulf (yes I merge it with golf except when speaking very carefully), and bulb and STRUT in cult and pulse.

[bradrn]

Thank you, interesting. If I tried to pronounce "ultra" in English, I'd probably use either the CUT vowel or the PUT vowel for the u.

I also have the CUT vowel, but a lot of Australian speakers have mergers before vocalised /l/. So /ɐl/ ends up being more like [ɒw] or even raised all the way to [o͡ʊ], though I’d still analyse it as CUT. Saying it as /ɒltra/ would sound very weird to me. As anteallach says, it’s more or less the same vowel in cult and pulse and multiply.

[Travis B.]

Thank you, interesting. If I tried to pronounce "ultra" in English, I'd probably use either the CUT vowel or the PUT vowel for the u.

I also have the CUT vowel, but a lot of Australian speakers have mergers before vocalised /l/. So /ɐl/ ends up being more like [ɒw] or even raised all the way to [o͡ʊ], though I’d still analyse it as CUT. Saying it as /ɒltra/ would sound very weird to me. As anteallach says, it’s more or less the same vowel in cult and pulse and multiply.

LOT would sound really weird in these words to me; while my THOUGHT is identical to RP LOT, I don't think of it as equivalent to LOT in any way (except for when it's really CLOTH, which is another story).

[vlad]

Thank you, interesting. If I tried to pronounce "ultra" in English, I'd probably use either the CUT vowel or the PUT vowel for the u.

I also have the CUT vowel, but a lot of Australian speakers have mergers before vocalised /l/. So /ɐl/ ends up being more like [ɒw] or even raised all the way to [o͡ʊ], though I’d still analyse it as CUT. Saying it as /ɒltra/ would sound very weird to me. As anteallach says, it’s more or less the same vowel in cult and pulse and multiply.

I have LOT in ultra, cult, pulse and multiply. I also do not vocalize /l/.

LOT [ɔ] + /l/: doll, poll; holly; bulk, cult, gulf, pulse, multiply, ultra, vulture; colt, golf; false, vault; dolled, polled
GOAL [ɒu] + /l/: dole, pole; holy, solar; bold, fold; bulb, bulge
GOAT [ɜʉ] + /l/: lowly, snowless
THOUGHT [oː] + /l/: fall, Paul; bald, called
STRUT [ɐ] + /l/: dull, skull; gully, skulling, sullen; culled, dulled, skulled

It's actually really hard to distinguish LOT and GOAL before coda /l/. Even though there are minimal pairs, it's hard to convince myself that doll and dole, are actually different. But it's easy when there's a following vowel: I have no trouble distinguishing "holly" and "holy". That may be because the /l/ in holly is less dark than the /l/ in the other words. (There's like three or four degrees of darkness, I don't know how to describe/transcribe them.)

I have heard other Australians who have LOT where I have THOUGHT.

[Nortaneous]

length /lejnkθ/ [ɫeɪ̯ŋ(k)θ]
strength /strejnkθ/ [stɹeɪ̯ŋ(k)θ]
penguin /ˈpejngwɨn/ [ˈpeɪ̯ŋgwɨn]
Jenkins /ˈdʒenkɨnz/ [dʒɛŋkɨnz] (also Genghis [gɛŋgɨs] ~ [dʒɛŋgɨs])

I think I contrast LOT, THOUGHT, and STRUT before /l/, but I'm not always sure which words have which. It's hard to tell when I'm looking at the spelling, and it doesn't sound obviously wrong to merge them, except LOT in recent loans.

Definitely LOT + /l/ [ɑˁɫ]: dal
Definitely LOT [ɑ̈]: holly
Definitely THOUGHT + /l/ [ɔ̜ˁɫ]: all, bald, ball, call, called, crawl, fall, fault, false, gall, Gaul, hall, Paul
Definitely THOUGHT + /l/ [ɒˁˡ]: Adolf, golf
Definitely STRUT + /l/ [ʌ̞ˁɫ]: bulge, gull, hull, skull
Plausibly any of the three but probably THOUGHT: multiply, vulture
Plausibly any of the three but probably STRUT: ultra

GOAL: bold, bowl, colt, dole, foal, fold, hole (etc.) - these are obviously distinct

[Travis B.]

length /lejnkθ/ [ɫeɪ̯ŋ(k)θ]
strength /strejnkθ/ [stɹeɪ̯ŋ(k)θ]
penguin /ˈpejngwɨn/ [ˈpeɪ̯ŋgwɨn]
Jenkins /ˈdʒenkɨnz/ [dʒɛŋkɨnz] (also Genghis [gɛŋgɨs] ~ [dʒɛŋgɨs])

I think I contrast LOT, THOUGHT, and STRUT before /l/, but I'm not always sure which words have which. It's hard to tell when I'm looking at the spelling, and it doesn't sound obviously wrong to merge them, except LOT in recent loans.

Definitely LOT + /l/ [ɑˁɫ]: dal
Definitely LOT [ɑ̈]: holly
Definitely THOUGHT + /l/ [ɔ̜ˁɫ]: all, bald, ball, call, called, crawl, fall, fault, false, gall, Gaul, hall, Paul
Definitely THOUGHT + /l/ [ɒˁˡ]: Adolf, golf
Definitely STRUT + /l/ [ʌ̞ˁɫ]: bulge, gull, hull, skull
Plausibly any of the three but probably THOUGHT: multiply, vulture
Plausibly any of the three but probably STRUT: ultra

GOAL: bold, bowl, colt, dole, foal, fold, hole (etc.) - these are obviously distinct

Genghis: [ˈɡ̥ɜ̃ːŋɡɘs]

Definitely LOT + /l/ [aɤ̯]: holly, Molly, Polly, folly, follow, hollow
Definitely THOUGHT + /l/ [ɒo̯]: all, bald, call, called, crawl, fall, fault, gall, Gaul, hall, Paul, Adolf, golf, multi-, multiply, ultra, ultimate, ulterior, bulb
Definitely STRUT + /l/ [ʌɤ̯]: bulge, gull, hull, skull, pulse, cult, gully, sullen
Either LOT or THOUGHT + /l/ [aɤ̯] or [ɒo̯]: doll
Either THOUGHT (normally) or STRUT (carefully) + /l/ [ɒo̯] or [ʌɤ̯]: gulf, bulk
Definitely GOAT + /l/ (aka GOAL) [o̞ʊ̯]: bold, bowl, colt, dole, foal, fold, hole, lowly, snowless

Note that where /l/ falls into another syllable the offglide may be replaced by a closer [ɰ], or [ʟ̞] in careful speech.

[Travis B.]

I get the impression from this that /V[+back]l/ and especially /V[+back]lC/ and /V[+back]l#/ sequences are very unstable in English dialects, considering that pretty much all the respondents here have different distributions and realizations, whether phonemic or phonetic, of historical phonemic back vowels in these positions, including people who speak NAE varieties (Nort and myself), AusE varieties (Darren and vlad), EngE varieties (anteallach), or varieties that are somewhere between SAE and AusE (bradrn).

[Travis B.]

Does anyone else have the distinction between pizza and Nazi such that pizza is [ˈpiʔt̚.tsə(ː)] and Nazi is [ˈna.tsi(ː)]?

And speaking of National Socialism, does anyone else have Nazi [ˈna.tsi(ː)] but knots [ˈnaʔts], topsy (as in topsy-turvy) [ˈtʰa.psi(ː)] but tops [ˈtʰaʔps], and boxy [ˈb̥a.ksi(ː)] but box [ˈb̥aʔksʲ]?

[Glenn]

length /lejnkθ/ [ɫeɪ̯ŋ(k)θ]
strength /strejnkθ/ [stɹeɪ̯ŋ(k)θ]
penguin /ˈpejngwɨn/ [ˈpeɪ̯ŋgwɨn]
Jenkins /ˈdʒenkɨnz/ [dʒɛŋkɨnz] (also Genghis [gɛŋgɨs] ~ [dʒɛŋgɨs])

I think I contrast LOT, THOUGHT, and STRUT before /l/, but I'm not always sure which words have which. It's hard to tell when I'm looking at the spelling, and it doesn't sound obviously wrong to merge them, except LOT in recent loans.

Definitely LOT + /l/ [ɑˁɫ]: dal
Definitely LOT [ɑ̈]: holly
Definitely THOUGHT + /l/ [ɔ̜ˁɫ]: all, bald, ball, call, called, crawl, fall, fault, false, gall, Gaul, hall, Paul
Definitely THOUGHT + /l/ [ɒˁˡ]: Adolf, golf
Definitely STRUT + /l/ [ʌ̞ˁɫ]: bulge, gull, hull, skull
Plausibly any of the three but probably THOUGHT: multiply, vulture
Plausibly any of the three but probably STRUT: ultra

GOAL: bold, bowl, colt, dole, foal, fold, hole (etc.) - these are obviously distinct

My pronunciation largely matches yours, except that my multiply, vulture, and ultra all have STRUT, and my penguin has [ɛ] (the same vowel as in Jenkin).

(My dialect is general GenAm, although it seems to have some conservative features).

[Glenn]

Does anyone else have the distinction between pizza and Nazi such that pizza is [ˈpiʔt̚.tsə(ː)] and Nazi is [ˈna.tsi(ː)]?

I think I may have this distinction.

And speaking of National Socialism, does anyone else have Nazi [ˈna.tsi(ː)] but knots [ˈnaʔts], topsy (as in topsy-turvy) [ˈtʰa.psi(ː)] but tops [ˈtʰaʔps], and boxy [ˈb̥a.ksi(ː)] but box [ˈb̥aʔks]?

On the other hand, I don't think I have this one; I hear no audible difference between my pronunciation of, e.g., boxy and box (although I may not be the best judge of my own pronunciation).