The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

[alynnidalar]

Rhotic (Inland North), I rhyme it with "work". I've never actually heard it rhymed with "York", but then again I've only rarely heard it said IRL (I've mostly just seen it written).

[ęzo]

Rhotic (Inland North), I rhyme it with "work". I've never actually heard it rhymed with "York", but then again I've only rarely heard it said IRL (I've mostly just seen it written).

Same for me: Inland North, [twɝk] (NURSE lexical set). I’ve not heard [twɔɹk] or the like either in Chicago or Boston.

[finlay]

How do you pronounce twerk?
I've heard many rhotic English speakers (mainly American & Canadian) say [twɔɹk] making it rhyme with York.
It sounds a bit "off" to me, since it always made sense to make it rhyme with work [wɜɹk/wɝk].

Maybe the difference isn't big enough for my ears to catch, but I distinctly hear them say an [ɔ] vowel there...

If you're hearing that, are you sure it's not just their accent? A lot of AmE speakers have a rhotic so heavy that it starts sounding like a back vowel.

[sirdanilot]

[twɹːk]

Who needs vowels if you have syllabic approximants?

[KathTheDragon]

[twɜ:k]

Who needs vowels if you have syllabic approximants?

Not Slovene at any rate.

[Nortaneous]

How do you pronounce twerk?
I've heard many rhotic English speakers (mainly American & Canadian) say [twɔɹk] making it rhyme with York.
It sounds a bit "off" to me, since it always made sense to make it rhyme with work [wɜɹk/wɝk].

Maybe the difference isn't big enough for my ears to catch, but I distinctly hear them say an [ɔ] vowel there...

If you're hearing that, are you sure it's not just their accent? A lot of AmE speakers have a rhotic so heavy that it starts sounding like a back vowel.

We do?

It rhymes with 'work'.

[ęzo]

Who needs vowels if you have syllabic approximants?

Not Slovene at any rate.

Syllabic it is, but that’s no approximant! (Unless you mean syllabic /l/, but that’s been gone from Slovene for a few centuries now: vlk > volk, slnce > sonce and whatnot)

[sirdanilot]

that sounds change is a pity but it is understandable

[Nortaneous]

dissect

[KathTheDragon]

Who needs vowels if you have syllabic approximants?

Not Slovene at any rate.

Syllabic it is, but that’s no approximant! (Unless you mean syllabic /l/, but that’s been gone from Slovene for a few centuries now: vlk > volk, slnce > sonce and whatnot)

Admittedly, that was a joke derived from the Slovene conlanger I know often citing Slovene words without any vowel letters, and was therefore mostly aimed at him.

[CatDoom]

dissect

That one's pretty consistently [daɪ̯ˈsɛkt] for me, though now that I think about it, it seems odd that I don't reduce the vowel in the first syllable.

[Sumelic]

The vowel reduction vs. absence of it isn't the only thing strange about how it is pronounced, though. The traditional reason pedants have objected to the pronunciation with a diphthong is that we would expect even an unreduced vowel here to be short, due to the orthographic doubling of the "s". The pronunciation with a diphthong seems like it might come from analogy with the differently-spelled "bisect".

[vokzhen]

Just doing some very quick testing, as a finite or plain infinitive it always takes /ai/, but as a gerund/participle/gunna-future it feels like it could be either /ai/ or a reduced vowel without sounding off. Might actually be by its use, might be a result of prosody, might be because I'm overanalyzing and finding distinctions where there are none, I'm not sure.

[sirdanilot]

I as an L2 speaker pronounce these words as they are spelled, which means an [ɪ] here rather than a diphtong. Of course with the ridiculous orthography of English you could ask yourself if there is such a thing as 'spelling pronunciation', but certainly in the majority of cases, an <i> before an orthographically double consonant is pronounced as [ɪ]. An additional reason to use this pronounciation, is that this same rule also applies in my native Dutch. The pronuncation with [ai] sounds like hillbilly 'Murrican to me, really, or 16/f/California talk (like, OMG, we [daisɛktɪd] that rabbit in class and OMG it was like so gross !')

Incidentally, I only recently discoverred the pronunciation of 'caveat'. I always used to think it was [kæviːt]

[Zaarin]

I as an L2 speaker pronounce these words as they are spelled, which means an [ɪ] here rather than a diphtong. Of course with the ridiculous orthography of English you could ask yourself if there is such a thing as 'spelling pronunciation', but certainly in the majority of cases, an <i> before an orthographically double consonant is pronounced as [ɪ]. An additional reason to use this pronounciation, is that this same rule also applies in my native Dutch. The pronuncation with [ai] sounds like hillbilly 'Murrican to me, really, or 16/f/California talk (like, OMG, we [daisɛktɪd] that rabbit in class and OMG it was like so gross !')

Incidentally, I only recently discoverred the pronunciation of 'caveat'. I always used to think it was [kæviːt]

When I was a kid I pronounced albeit as [alˈbaɪt]. General American accent here; I've never heard any pronunciation other than /daisɛkt/ despite the <ss>. Definitely not hillbilly; that would be [daˈsɪkt].

[Pole, the]

Albeit macht flei.

[sirdanilot]

'Melee' is also a notorious word for mispronunciation. [məliː] anyone?

[Zaarin]

'Melee' is also a notorious word for mispronunciation. [məliː] anyone?

Spell "mêlée" properly and it's not a problem. I'm a total medieval history geek so I've never had any problems with that one.

[sirdanilot]

That is the French spelling. I have never seen the spelling with the accents in English, but hey some people will probably do it.

[Zaarin]

That is the French spelling. I have never seen the spelling with the accents in English, but hey some people will probably do it.

I don't generally spell melee with the accents either, but I've definitely seen it in academic and older books. I've never had occasion to use the word in my writing, but if I did I'd probably use "mêlée."

[Sumelic]

Here's a new set:

discussed
disgust
Xavier
sphere
Sven
wont
chaos
Logos
quark
force
Laura
Laurie
story
maul
mole
centaur
Minotaur

[ęzo]

dissect [dɜe̽ˈsæ̆kt]
discussed [dĕˈskʌst]
disgust [dĕˈskʌst]
Xavier [æ̆gˈze̞eviɻ̩], [xäviˈe̽ɻ]
sphere [sviɻ]
Sven [svæ̆n]
wont [wɔnt]
chaos [ˈkʰe̞eɒs]
Logos [ˈlo̞go̞s]
quark [kʰwäɻk]
force [foɻs]
Laura [ˈloɻə]
Laurie [ˈloɻi]
story [ˈstoɻi]
maul [mɔl]
mole [moʊl]
centaur [sæ̆nˈtoɻ]
Minotaur [ˈmäenɤ̈toɻ]

edit: fixed aspiration, syllabification

[Zaarin]

discussed [dɪˈskust]
disgust [dɪˈskust] ([dɪsˈgust] in careful speech)
Xavier [ˈksɛɪviɚ] OR [ˈzɛɪviɚ]
sphere [ˈsfiɻ]
Sven [ˈsv̬ɛn]
wont [ˈwɔnt]
chaos [ˈkʰɛɪ.ɔs]
Logos [ˈloʊgoʊs]
quark [ˈkwɔɻk] (as opposed to Quark [ˈkwɑɻk])
force [ˈfoʊɻs]
Laura [ˈlɔɻə]
Laurie [ˈloʊɻi]
story [ˈstoʊɻi]
maul [ˈmɑl]
mole [ˈmoʊl]
centaur [ˈcɛntɔɻ] OR [ˈcɛntɑɻ]
Minotaur [ˈmɪnoʊˌtʰɑɻ]

[Sumelic]

Wow, these are more interesting than I expected!
Followup questions, if you don't mind answering:

discussed [dĕsˈkʌst] disgust [dĕsˈkʌst] Is it syllabified that way, or like this: [dĕˈskʌst]? Is the k aspirated or not? Also, is it a true phonetic [ʌ] (urounded [ɔ]) or more like [ɐ]?
sphere [sviɻ] Sven [svæ̆n] Is the [v] here actually voiced?
Logos [ˈlo̞go̞s] Is this lower than the vowel in "force" and the like, or about the same height? Also, are either diphthongized at all?
centaur [sæ̆nˈtoɻ] Is this stressed on the second syllable, or was that an accident?

discussed [dɪˈskust] disgust [dɪˈskust] ([dɪsˈgust] in careful speech) Is it a true phonetic or more like [ɐ]?
wont [ˈwɔnt]
chaos [ˈkʰɛɪ.ɔs]
quark [ˈkwɔɻk] (as opposed to Quark [ˈkwɑɻk]) Isn't the k aspirated?
force [ˈfoʊɻs]
Laura [ˈlɔɻə]
Laurie [ˈloʊɻi] Do you have any idea why the vowel is different from Laura?
story [ˈstoʊɻi]
maul [ˈmɑl]

@Zaarin: you have very interesting vowels. Would you say you have the lot-thought merger, but also a lot-cloth split? What other words have /ɔ/ for you? Would you mind transcribing how you say the following additional words (especially the vowels):
caught
cot
lot
cloth
gone
horse
hoarse
foreign

[ęzo]

Followup questions, if you don't mind answering:
discussed [dĕsˈkʌst] disgust [dĕsˈkʌst] Is it syllabified that way, or like this: [dĕˈskʌst]? Is the k aspirated or not? Also, is it a true phonetic [ʌ] (urounded [ɔ]) or more like [ɐ]?

Ah, yes, that syllabification makes more sense. There is no aspiration in either one, but looking back, I did forget to add aspiration diacritics in »chaos« and »quark«. The vowel is a true phonetic [ʌ] (all the vowels were determined by looking at the acoustic formants); the Northern Cities vowel shift, which I have many features of, has tended toward backing /ʌ/.

sphere [sviɻ] Sven [svæ̆n] Is the [v] here actually voiced?

Yes, even in sphere. This might be influenced by the other language I grew up with, which has [sv] as a pretty common initial cluster, e.g. sve, svugde, svašta, svirati, etc.

Logos [ˈlo̞go̞s] Is this lower than the vowel in "force" and the like, or about the same height? Also, are either diphthongized at all?

Slightly lower (the »force« vowel, by contrast, is definitely high-mid), and not diphthongized at all — not particularly adapted to English phonology. This probably stems from some combination of the desire to avoid confusion with »logos«, influence from reading the word in Greek script, and the rarity of hearing the word spoken aloud.

centaur [sæ̆nˈtoɻ] Is this stressed on the second syllable, or was that an accident?

No accident; I am not sure where this stress pattern came from, but I’ve never used any other.