The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[JT the Ninja]

Which syllable do you stress when saying "TV"? I personally always stress the second syllable, but I've heard a lot of people stress the first.

[bbbosborne]

i stress the second: /tiːˈviː/

[Zaarin]

Which syllable do you stress when saying "TV"? I personally always stress the second syllable, but I've heard a lot of people stress the first.

I stress first or second in free variation, but I'd see initial stress is more typical for me.

[Travis B.]

I normally stress the second syllable of TV.

[mèþru]

Second, but the stress is so weak that it's almost identical to the first syllable

[Salmoneus]

We've probably had this one, but I can't remember, so:

bus

?

[anteallach]

We've probably had this one, but I can't remember, so:

bus

?

/bʌs/ [bɞs]

[Travis B.]

[pʌs]

[Zaarin]

[bɐs]

[Dē Graut Bʉr]

With a heavy Dutch accent.

[Salmoneus]

Hmm. I was expecting some /bUs/, but what I was hoping for was some /bVz/ or /bUz/.

My father's always semi-affectedly used these (that is, both the vowel and I assume the consonant are features of his 'native' dialect, which are 'corrected' in formal speech but often, probably intentionally, restored when talking to friends or family). Which I'd not really though about much until I heard someone on television using /bVz/ the other day, which made me wonder: is this just a Northern thing, and if so which bits of the North, or has it also spread abroad? And is it reguar (eg. is /z/ also found in truss, fuss or related words? (I have a strong feeling I've heard /fUz/ but I wouldn't absolutely swear to it)).

[Linguoboy]

I don't think I've ever heard bus with /z/ in any variety. That would make it homophonous with buzz which is just...weird.

[anteallach]

I don't think I've ever heard bus with /z/ in any variety. That would make it homophonous with buzz which is just...weird.

It's not uncommon in the North and Midlands of England. I couldn't give a detailed distribution within those areas, other than to say that I'm confident that it wasn't the usual form in the middle class bit of the North I grew up in. The first person I recall noticing it from was from Birmingham, but I don't think it's specifically associated with there.

As to Sal's question, I'm not aware of /z/ in fuss etc.; it is very common in us, but that's a bit different.

[Pabappa]

I've heard of the voiced variant but I've always assumed it was british and have never heard it out loud. Only word I know of with that type of variation is gas, which for a few Americans , at least ,can end in /z/.

[Nortaneous]

Has anyone heard of "warm" and "worm" being merged?

[Hekmatyar]

When I was young I used to say a host of words incorrectly, and I do believe "worm" was one of them, along with "whether" containing a θ, and pronouncing words from French to the letter. Obviously this got amended as I got older, however, for quite a while I'd just been a stubborn child, and said them as I believed them to be said in my head, silently mocking others. However, this is just language learning mishap, I suppose. As far as a native believing them to have shared sounds, even after being exposed to other English speakers' pronunciations, I'm highly doubtful that anyone could go that far without being corrected. And if this merger were to happen naturally and develop, I suspect it'd be documented before the cow could even think of coming home. I should add that I'm by no means an expert, this is just what I know and think. Hopefully someone with much more of a pedigree than me will come along and tell us about it.

[Linguoboy]

Has anyone heard of "warm" and "worm" being merged?

My ex used to claim that I merged all my short vowels before /r/. The distinction between these two isn't robust in my speech and I wouldn't be the least surprised if someone heard one for the other.

[Travis B.]

For me they are quite distinct, as warm [wɔ̃(ː)ʁ̃ʷm] and worm [wʁ̩̃ʷ(ː)m].

[anteallach]

Has anyone heard of "warm" and "worm" being merged?

My ex used to claim that I merged all my short vowels before /r/. The distinction between these two isn't robust in my speech and I wouldn't be the least surprised if someone heard one for the other.

Isn't St Louis one of those places where there's a tendency towards a START/NORTH merger? That wouldn't merge those two, but might help to give an impression of merging short vowels before /r/.

Traditional Geordie has a NURSE/NORTH merger. (There's an old joke about work sounding like mainstream BrE walk.) However that's far enough from the mainstream of English dialects that I wouldn't be surprised to find that warm has START.

[Linguoboy]

Isn't St Louis one of those places where there's a tendency towards a START/NORTH merger? That wouldn't merge those two, but might help to give an impression of merging short vowels before /r/.

Should be past tense. There's a full-blown card-cord merger (to give it its more usual name) in my mother's speech; my siblings and I have it in a few words (notably forest) and as far as I can tell it's complete absent from my nephews' speech.

Weird things happen after /w/ in my dialect. /eh/ gets centralised to /ə/ in went and twenty and I was surprised to find anyone has /oh/ in water because I alternate between /ə/ and /or/ (one of the few remaining Baltimorisms in my speech).