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Pronunciation is perhaps the antithesis of "Writing", the topic of this forum, but we don't have an erudite "Talking" forum, so here goes.
Do you subscribe to the theory that every word has a single correct pronunciation? If not, where are the boundaries.
Do prouniciations stem from spelling, or does spelling stem from pronunciation?
Here's some food for thought. "Cartesian" is from the name of the originator, Rene DeCartes. "Keynesian" is, similarly, from John Maynard Keynes. But the pronunciations are /car-TEE-zhun/ and /KAYN-zee-un/. Why not /kee-NEE-zhun/?
Who was the authority who had to power to decide, in the late 1930s, how to correctly pronounce "Keynesian"?
Some of what's discussed here is normal regional variation in pronunciation (the great "pin/pen" controversy of the US), and some of it's just plain mistakes. Some is what you could call "slurring over syllables" (see "important/impordant") which is not in my mind the same thing as a mistake.
One question is when the pronunciation of a foreign work ceases to be "accented" and begins to be "just flat wrong". As a speaker of Spanish, living in Texas where Spanish is all about me, the BBC pronunciation of "Nick-a-ragg-you-wah" strikes me as WRONG. But on the other hand if I'm speaking English amongst non-Spanish-speakers and I refer to the same country, I'll probably pronounce it "Nick-a-rah-gwah" and I won't roll the R; whereas if I were in the country and speaking Spanish to another Spanish speaker I'd pronounce it "Nee-cah-rah-gwah" and I'd put a single roll on the R.
Now to me the BBC pronunciation is an unacceptable Anglicization but my "in the USA" pronunciation is an acceptable modification so as not to confuse my interlocutors.
People like to point out Worcestershire but the pronunciation predates the current spelling by many hundreds of years. There's a myth (whether true or not, I don't know) that at one time scribes were paid by the letter so it was in their interest to add letters to words - and the illiterate people for whom they scribed didn't know any better - and the literate people to whom they wrote, knew how to decipher the extra letters.
People like to point out Worcestershire but the pronunciation predates the current spelling by many hundreds of years. There's a myth (whether true or not, I don't know) that at one time scribes were paid by the letter so it was in their interest to add letters to words - and the illiterate people for whom they scribed didn't know any better - and the literate people to whom they wrote, knew how to decipher the extra letters.
It's been a while, but I read a few books on the history of English, and the root of words like Worsecestershire/Leicestershire breaks down to (ancient tribal name) + cester (Latin word for camp or fort) + shire (division of land)=the land of the fortress of the tribe. It's all been mangled over time and space, but the original words might have been even longer.
I'm hearing more and more people on TV pronounce "important" as "impordant." I've never noticed this before. Is it just me?
I wouldn't be surprised. The pronunciation of ts as ds in the middle of words in particular is common in some dialects. For example, most North Americans (and, in general, other native English speakers outside of the British Isles) will pronounce bitter like bidder, metal like medal, to name just a couple of many examples. These are known as taps, falling somewhere between the proper t and a full d sound. By comparison, you will notice that British speakers tend to clearly articulate the t sounds in those and other similar words.
Similar taps occur in many other dialects and languages.
I've been listening to an audio book narrated by a Britisher. She mispronounces so many words, putting the emPHAsis on the wrong syllable, it's an horror to hear!
I've been listening to an audio book narrated by a Britisher. She mispronounces so many words, putting the emPHAsis on the wrong syllable, it's an horror to hear!
If she's pronouncing the words as they are in the UK, then she's not mispronouncing them.
If she's pronouncing the words as they are in the UK, then she's not mispronouncing them.
Oh, do you think so?
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