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Swansea Council officials requested the Welsh translation of a road sign reading: “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only.” Naturally, you might assume, they presumed the reply from a translator was what they asked for. Unfortunately, the email response to Swansea council said, in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated". This then went onto the road sign.
Swansea Council officials requested the Welsh translation of a road sign reading: “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only.” Naturally, you might assume, they presumed the reply from a translator was what they asked for. Unfortunately, the email response to Swansea council said, in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated". This then went onto the road sign.
Does that rhyme with gas-peddle? I never realized that metal, medal, mettle and meddle are all pronounced the same (by most Americans). One of the few 4-way homonyms.
Not exactly true. Although it is true that intervocalic /t/ and /d/ are pronounced the same, the vowel before a voiced consonant is longer that the vowel before a voiceless consonant. Therefore, the first syllable in "medal" is longer than the first syllable in "metal". Virtually every native speaker of English would recognize the difference.
The same is true of such minimal pairs as "matter" and "madder" or "backer" and "bagger".
Not exactly true. Although it is true that intervocalic /t/ and /d/ are pronounced the same, the vowel before a voiced consonant is longer that the vowel before a voiceless consonant. Therefore, the first syllable in "medal" is longer than the first syllable in "metal". Virtually every native speaker of English would recognize the difference.
The same is true of such minimal pairs as "matter" and "madder" or "backer" and "bagger".
People would always spell them differently if they pronounced them differently, but a majority of Americans don't. In everyday speech, nearly all Americans voice the /t/ in 'metal', and lengthen the vowel accordingly.
In other words, if the speaker doesn't even know that they are two different words, he doesn't know that the consonants in 'metal' and 'medal' are not the same, so has no indicator to guide him to the relative vowel length. And therefore, does indeed pronounce both the vowel and the consonant the same in both words, in ignorance of the difference between the two.
That's what you would think, but the facts are otherwise. In fact, virtually everyone could tell the difference based solely on pronunciation, with no reference to context.
Not exactly true. Although it is true that intervocalic /t/ and /d/ are pronounced the same, the vowel before a voiced consonant is longer that the vowel before a voiceless consonant. Therefore, the first syllable in "medal" is longer than the first syllable in "metal". Virtually every native speaker of English would recognize the difference.
The same is true of such minimal pairs as "matter" and "madder" or "backer" and "bagger".
The problem is that people DO say all those words the same - but SHOULD not.
Mettle and metal are homonyms, but medal and metal are not. It is sloppy and lazy speech to pronounce a d the same as a t. It frustrates the bejeezus out of me because I depend on people's lips/tongues in order to hear them correctly. (I am late deafened.)
Two other words that fit into this category are disgust and discussed.
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