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Here in Utah, pronunciation can be whimsical, for sure. In everyday speech, there is a generic vowel that's a bit like a soft "e" with a bit of an "au" mixed in. It replaces several others, like the "i" in milk (pronounced melk here). There's also no medial "t" in many words The city of Layton, for example, is pronounced "Lay'on" with only the briefest glottal hesitation where I've put the apostrophe.
Then there's the city of Hurricane, pronounced "herkun" and Tooele, pronounced two-ELa.
I'm guilty of a few habitual errors myself, largely due to having seen words in print years before hearing them, and pronouncing them phonetically in my mind. The chemical antimony is one. I've always thought it as an-TIM-ony whereas the official pronunciation is ANT-imony.
There's another six-dollar word I mispronounce, but it escapes me at the moment. We might say it's on the tip of my tongue - sideways.
Here in Utah, pronunciation can be whimsical, for sure. In everyday speech, there is a generic vowel that's a bit like a soft "e" with a bit of an "au" mixed in. It replaces several others, like the "i" in milk (pronounced melk here). There's also no medial "t" in many words The city of Layton, for example, is pronounced "Lay'on" with only the briefest glottal hesitation where I've put the apostrophe.
Then there's the city of Hurricane, pronounced "herkun" and Tooele, pronounced two-ELa.
I'm guilty of a few habitual errors myself, largely due to having seen words in print years before hearing them, and pronouncing them phonetically in my mind. The chemical antimony is one. I've always thought it as an-TIM-ony whereas the official pronunciation is ANT-imony.
There's another six-dollar word I mispronounce, but it escapes me at the moment. We might say it's on the tip of my tongue - sideways.
Haha, I do the same thing to help me remember how to spell certain words.
meat
feat
neat
seat
feasible read
lead
knead (as in kneading bread)
great* - huh? What happened to the long E sound?
See what I mean? If you are from out of country trying to understand the pronunciation of our words things like this can really throw you off. I believe many other languages have stricter pronunciation guides whereas there are not as many, if any, variations to them. It can be quite confusing.
Concerning the word read... don't forget it has one spelling but two ways to be pronounced, depending of its use: like "reed" (present tense) or "red" (past tense). This is the kind of word that kills whoever tries to learn the language!
One lf the factors that causes complications is the introduction of new words that occur first in print before very many people have a chance to hear them.
One example that comes to mind is "Jacana", which is a tropical marsh bird that rarely and accidentally wanders into the southern United States. Birdwatchers pronounce it in a wide variety of ways and have heated discussions about the correct pronunciation, since there is no English-speaking country in its natural range. Another is the Parula, a kind of warbler that is fairly common throughout eastern USA and Canada. Birdwatchers have become pretty well accustomed to hearing their colleagues use widely diverse pronunciations of even common birds, perhaps most virulent in the Pileated Woodpecker.
In the past couple of years, the Tanager family has been split into two groups, the second of which has abeen assigned the Spanish name "Tangara" as its common name, and I can think of at least a half dozen rational ways to anglicize that word.
Orhnithologists are extremely precise in their nomenclature, but have wisely kept their hands off the pronunciations of their terms.
If you're still wondering about the Jacana, the name is of Portuguese origin, with a cedilla under the C, so I an of the camp that prefers "JAH-sa-NAH". If you want to see one, there is one spending the winter at Choke Canyon State Park, south of San Antonio.
The word "Column" is usually pronounced "COLL-em." but many pronounce it "COLL-yume."
I've never heard that pronounciation.
My father used to say "the Brahamas."
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Kansas Arkansas
This is the kind of word that kills whoever tries to learn the language!
