The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

[schyrsivochter]

And as for the [oː], it’s the phoneme /ɔː/, I know. I just observed that this phoneme tends to be pronounced [ɔ̝ː] or even [oː] in British English and I’m mimicking that.

But you didn't write [oː] there, you wrote [o]. Is this a phonetic transcription or isn't it?[/quote]
If I did, I meant to write [oː] anyway.

[finlay]

I thought histORical was in the same lexical set as "orange" and "horrible." So /ɒr/ in British English, which has the vowel of LOT instead of FORCE (see this post on John Wells's phonetic blog which describes how "historian" and "historical" have different stressed vowels in Received Pronunciation). It is merged with NORTH(~FORCE) in some varieties of American English by a tense-lax merger parallel to the the merry-marry-Mary merger.

I've just been listening to an audiobook in which the American narrator affects a British accent for most of the narration, but doesn't manage to correct these phonemic differences, meaning that he mispronounces words like forest, historical and marry constantly. It's quite frustrating, but I stuck it out because the story was good enough.

[opipik]

consider

[schyrsivochter]

consider

[kʰə̆n.ˈsɪ.də]

[Zaarin]

consider [kʰn̩ˈsɪɾɹ̩ˁ]

[Matrix]

[kʰ(ʌ)nˈsɪɾɹ̩]

[schyrsivochter]

water

(Mine’s [wɔ̝ːtʰə].)

[Matrix]

[wɑɾɹ̩]

[linguoboy]

[ˈwoɚ̯ɾɚ] ~ [ˈwʌɾɚ]

[Travis B.]

water: /ˈwɔtər/ [wɒːʁ] (normal)~[ˈwɒɾʁ̩(ː)] (careful)

[Zaarin]

[wɑɾɹ̩ˁ~wɑʔɹ̩ˁ~wɑːɹ̩ˁ]

[KathTheDragon]

postman
postmen

[schyrsivochter]

[pʰɜø̯̈stⁿmæn]
[pʰɜø̯̈stⁿmɛ̈n]
The ⁿ modifier means nasal release of a stop.

[Travis B.]

postman: /ˈpoʊstmən/ [ˈpʰosʲmɘ̃(ː)(n)]
postmen; /ˈpoʊstˌmɛn/ [ˈpʰosʲˌmɜ̃(ː)(n)]

[Richard W]

For the terms meaning deliverer(s) of mail, I usually have:

‘postman’ /pəʊsmən/
‘postmen’ /pəʊsmən/

I cannot vouch that /əʊ/ is [əʊ].

I believe it is a word I picked up from speaking and listening rather than reading. (I am not sure that that will go for all contributors.) My speech was not corrupted by exposure to Postman Pat as a child.

[Travis B.]

In my dialect, I am used to mailman and mailmen rather than postman or postmen. (My father is a retired mailman, FWIW.)

For these I have:

mailman: /ˈmeɪlˌmæn/~/ˈmeɪlmən/ [ˈmeːɯ̞ˌmɛ̃(ː)(n)]~[ˈmeːɯ̞mɘ̃(ː)(n)]
mailmen: /ˈmeɪlˌmɛn/ [ˈmeːɯ̞ˌmɜ̃(ː)(n)]

Not that unlike postman, mailman can have an unreduced second vowel for me.

[ol bofosh]

kʰən.ˈsɪ.dɜ
ˈwɔː.tʰɜ
ˈpʰɜʉst.mæːn~ˈpʰɜʉst.mən
ˈpʰɜʉst.mɛn~ˈpʰɜʉst.mən

The last two are usually reduced. The same thing I do with gentleman/gentlemen.

[Pole, the]

How do you pronounce "Koh-i-Noor"?

[Mâq Lar]

How do you pronounce "Koh-i-Noor"?

I've never said it out loud, but in my head it is

[kʰɔu ʔi nu:r]

each with equal stress

[linguoboy]

How do you pronounce "Koh-i-Noor"?

I've never said it out loud, but in my head it is

[kʰɔu ʔi nu:r]

It's hard to say what level of stress I give the i. It doesn't sound to me like either "Koey Noor" or "Ko E. Noor", so I want to say it's something in-between.

IMD, /or/ and /ur/ have merged so I have free variation for the vowel of Noor.

[Mâq Lar]

It's hard to say what level of stress I give the i. It doesn't sound to me like either "Koey Noor" or "Ko E. Noor", so I want to say it's something in-between.

Again, I've never actually said it out loud, but on reflection I think I agree about the i; rather than all primary stresses or primary-none-primary, it's probably primary-secondary-primary for me. Similar to Chinese - all (non-tone less) syllables have more stress than English's lightest stress, but they're not all equally stressed.

For me, the difference might be in the intonation contour rather than the intensity of each syllable - the i doesn't have the full length of the falling tone contour that a stressed syllable would usually have and that the koh and noor have.

[Pole, the]

I'm asking because here it sounds like /kɔrɪˈnɔr/ and it baffles me.

[Travis B.]

I have:

Koh-i-Noor: /ˈkoʊ ˌi ˈnur/ [ˈkʰoːw ˌiː ˈnu(ː)ʁ]

[vokzhen]

I'm asking because here it sounds like /kɔrɪˈnɔr/ and it baffles me.

It's cuz Brits can't pronounce English correctly

[Pole, the]

Still, it would require the original realization to be /kɔː.ɪ.nɔr/ or such.

* * *

How would you pronounce “Urquhart”?