The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[Space60]

How do you pronounce?

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

For me these words have the "ee" sound in "seen".

[Travis B.]

length: [ʟ̞ẽŋkθ]~[ɰẽŋkθ]
strength: [ɕtɕɻ͡ʁẽŋkθ]
penguin: [ ˈpʰɜ̃ːŋɡwɘ̃(ː)(n)]
Jenkins: [ˈtʃɜ̃(ŋ)kɘ̃ːnts]

[anteallach]

How do you pronounce?

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

For me these words have the "ee" sound in "seen".

The boring answer:
[lɛŋkθ]
[ʂtʂɹɛŋkθ]
[ˈpɛŋgwɪn]
[ˈdʒɛŋkɪnz]

/ɛ/ is probably a bit higher in this environment than it normally is, but only a bit.

[Imralu]

[ɫeŋ(k)θ]
[stɹeŋ(k)θ]
[pʰeŋgwən]
[d͡ʒeŋkənz]

The epenthetic /k/ is sometimes there and sometimes not. Usually my /ɛ/ is somewhere around [ɛ] and not as raised as in a broad Australian accent, but I think I raise it before /ŋ/. The first two, I used to pronounce with [ɪ] though. That's how I hear a lot of people say it, but I think I was just always misinterpreting other people's very raised /ɛ/. When I realised I was pronouncing these words differently, I consciously worked on "correcting" myself. Now I naturally pronounce them with /ɛ/, but for a while I'd get confused. I used to work in a bottle shop ( = liquor store) and I'd sometimes try to say "mid-strength" and in my effort to avoid saying "stringth" I'd end up saying "med-stringth".

[Zaarin]

length [ɫeŋg̊θ]
strength [stɹ̱ˁʷeŋg̊θ]
penguin [ˈpɛngwɪn] ([ŋ] in penguin sounds a little strange to me...)
Jenkins [ˈʤɛŋkn̩z~ˈʤɛnkn̩z]

[mèþru]

[ɫeɪŋkθ]
[stɹeɪŋkθ]
[pʰɛŋgwɪn]
[d͡ʒɛŋkɪnz]

[Nortaneous]

I'm not sure whether I have /æ/ (which is [æj] before voiced velars) or /ej/ in 'length' and 'strength'. 'Penguin' has /ej/. 'Jenkins' has /e/; so does 'Genghis'.

[Whimemsz]

I have /æ/ in "length" and "strength" and I've been very concerned about this for a while because no one else seems to (including my family or people from the area where I grew up or people where I live now, as far as I've been able to determine)!!!

(I have /ɛ/ in "penguin" and "Jenkins", and neither /æ/ or /ɛ/ is pronounced significantly differently from my "normal" /æ/=[æɨ̆] or /ɛ/=[ɛ] before velars or velar nasals or whatever for me.)

[Xwtek]

Sometimes when I speaking an English word, I feel like I syllabicate the word as if some sylable don't have vowel at all. Exampleː

/s.plæt/
/plænt.ts/ (I don't know if the syllable breaks should precede or follow /t/)
/s̠.t̠ɹ̠ɛŋ.kθ/

Do you also syllabicate that way? Is this correct?

[Linguoboy]

I'm not sure whether I have /æ/ (which is [æj] before voiced velars) or /ej/ in 'length' and 'strength'. 'Penguin' has /ej/. 'Jenkins' has /e/; so does 'Genghis'.

I didn't expect the vowels would be so all over the map.

I'm glad to see Jenkins is an exception for someone else. Despite my pin-pen merger, I have [ɛ]. All I can figure is that it's a name I first learned to pronounce from British movies.

I thought maybe someone else would have /ŋ/ > [n̪] | _θ but I guess it's just me.

[Kuchigakatai]

I thought maybe someone else would have /ŋ/ > [n̪] | _θ but I guess it's just me.

A couple years after arriving in Canada I heard about "strength" and its intrusive phonetic [k] on one of these language forums, and wanted to hear it myself. I asked a whole bunch of people I knew in Vancouver to pronounce it for me, and while many of them said [ɛŋkθ], some did say [ɛn̪(t̪)θ].

[Zaarin]

I thought maybe someone else would have /ŋ/ > [n̪] | _θ but I guess it's just me.

I don't have it, but I've heard it often enough to find it non-remarkable--the majority of people I've heard it from have been L1 Spanish speakers, but I've also heard it from native speakers.

[Nortaneous]

I'm glad to see Jenkins is an exception for someone else. Despite my pin-pen merger, I have [ɛ]. All I can figure is that it's a name I first learned to pronounce from British movies.

I figure e > ej / _ŋ _g is completed and no longer operative. So there's a closed set of common words to which it applies, and everything else is pronounced as written. The pin-pen merger might be the same.

I'm not sure what's going on with "length" and "strength".

[Travis B.]

I'm not sure what's going on with "length" and "strength".

I have heard that the traditional pronunciation of length is actually /lɪnθ/, and that /leɪŋ[k]θ/ is actually a spelling pronunciation, and I would presume that strength is the same way.

[mèþru]

edited my response because I actually have diphthongs for the first two

[anteallach]

I'm not sure what's going on with "length" and "strength".

I have heard that the traditional pronunciation of length is actually /lɪnθ/, and that /leɪŋ[k]θ/ is actually a spelling pronunciation, and I would presume that strength is the same way.

Looking at the OED, there is a lot of variation in the historical forms of these two words, and I doubt it makes sense to talk about "the traditional pronunciation". It looks like there's been variation between /nθ/ and /ŋ(k)θ/ (sometimes with an epenthetic vowel after the /k/) since Middle English; there are also forms with /t/ instead of /θ/, and considerable variation in the vowel.

[Raholeun]

What about "genuine"?

[Travis B.]

What about "genuine"?

[ˈtʃɜ̃ːnjəːˌwɘ̃(ː)n], carefully [ˈtʃɜ̃ːnjuːˌwɘ̃(ː)n]

[Zaarin]

genuine [ˈʤɛnjʊwɪn], careful speech [ˈʤɛnjuwɪn]

[Linguoboy]

All three vowels are [ɪ] for me.