Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlearn

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Sumelic
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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Sumelic »

KathTheDragon wrote:
Ask

Many say this word like "axe," but in fact, the "S" sound should come before the "K."
I wonder if the /æks/ variant could be continued from OE āxian
It seems quite possible, although I believe other words can exhibit similar metathesis in some accents of AAVE, so it could also be a coincidence for most speakers. (The specific word "asterisk" also seems to often have metathetic /ks/, and this obviously can't be derived from Old English.)

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by KathTheDragon »

That's true. So perhaps the specific metathesis is just a sporadic process that's been happening for the last millennium.

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by jal »

Sumelic wrote:this obviously can't be derived from Old English.
It's from Gaulish.

I had to look up "whilst" yesterday, I couldn't remember whether it was [wɪlst] or [wɑɪlst]. Apparently the latter.


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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Znex »

jal wrote:I had to look up "whilst" yesterday, I couldn't remember whether it was [wɪlst] or [wɑɪlst]. Apparently the latter.


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Rule of thumb with prepositions or adverbs with -st variations: the -st doesn't typically affect the pronunciation of the main morpheme.

eg.
"while" vs. "whilst"
"among" vs. "amongst"
"amid" vs. "amidst".

Same with words like "against", but "against" is a derivation of "again", not a variant.
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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by alynnidalar »

Hmm. I've actually always pronounced "whilst" with /ɪ/.

Then again, in my version of American English, it's seen as archaic and... whimsical, I guess, so the "actual" pronunciation isn't necessarily relevant.
I generally forget to say, so if it's relevant and I don't mention it--I'm from Southern Michigan and speak Inland North American English. Yes, I have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift; no, I don't have the cot-caught merger; and it is called pop.

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by linguoboy »

alynnidalar wrote:Hmm. I've actually always pronounced "whilst" with /ɪ/.
Unless you've got a pronounced voiceless initial in that word, I would hear it as "willst" (speaking of archaïcisms).

I got points deducted from one of my college essays for using "whilst". I don't think of it as sounding particularly archaïc myself, so I must hear it in speech occasionally. (You did make me realise that I have a crazy range of acceptable vowel variation in this word, from [aɪ̯] all the way to [ɒ].)

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Travis B. »

Sumelic wrote:
KathTheDragon wrote:
Ask

Many say this word like "axe," but in fact, the "S" sound should come before the "K."
I wonder if the /æks/ variant could be continued from OE āxian
It seems quite possible, although I believe other words can exhibit similar metathesis in some accents of AAVE, so it could also be a coincidence for most speakers. (The specific word "asterisk" also seems to often have metathetic /ks/, and this obviously can't be derived from Old English.)
My dialect has /ˈæstrɪk/ (for me, [ˈɛɕtɕɻ͡ʁɘʔk]) for asterisk.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Zaarin »

Vijay wrote:I don't pronounce the l in almond, either. I'd never heard it with the l pronounced until this Canadian guy in grad school said something about eating almond ice cream and I was like "what? Element ice cream?" :P
Conversely, I'd probably parse almond without the /l/ as amend. :p
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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by linguoboy »

Zaarin wrote:
Vijay wrote:I don't pronounce the l in almond, either. I'd never heard it with the l pronounced until this Canadian guy in grad school said something about eating almond ice cream and I was like "what? Element ice cream?" :P
Conversely, I'd probably parse almond without the /l/ as amend. :p
But the stress...

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Zaarin »

linguoboy wrote:
Zaarin wrote:
Vijay wrote:I don't pronounce the l in almond, either. I'd never heard it with the l pronounced until this Canadian guy in grad school said something about eating almond ice cream and I was like "what? Element ice cream?" :P
Conversely, I'd probably parse almond without the /l/ as amend. :p
But the stress...
True, but /ɑmənd/ sounds so strange to my ears that I honestly wouldn't know how to parse it, at least not prior to this conversation and without very obvious context. I certainly wouldn't parse it as almond.
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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by finlay »

I think I pronounced the L in almond until I came to Japan and saw it written as アーモンド - like obviously the pronunciation is different, but little things like that influence me subtly. But I dunno, I can't remember how I pronounced things five or six years ago.

But I never pronounced it in other words, like talk, calm, palm, salmon, etc. It sounds wrong to me in those cases.

Oh yeah, also my last name, for those who know it, has this -alm- in the middle - I've always pronounced it but I've noticed my dad doesn't.

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by linguoboy »

When I met my late husband, he lived between the streets Balmoral and Catalpa. It threw me to hear people pronounce the l in the latter, because I grew up around actual catalpa trees and no one pronounced the l. (Turns out it's a spelling pronunciation; the etymon is katába, also transcribed "catawba".)

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Vijay »

The Canadian guy I mentioned actually pronounced almond with a different vowel, too: [ʔæɫmn̩d̚] or something like that. An Irish lady I also knew in grad school had the same vowel but dropped the /l/: [ʔæmənd].

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by jal »

finlay wrote:salmon
I've always pronounced that [ˈsæl.mn̩], no doubt because Dutch has an /l/ in it ([zɑɫm] or [ˈzɑ.ləm]).
linguoboy wrote:(...) Catalpa. It threw me to hear people pronounce the l in the latter, because I grew up around actual catalpa trees and no one pronounced the l. (Turns out it's a spelling pronunciation; the etymon is katába, also transcribed "catawba".)
"Catalpa" is the latin name for the tree, so I'm not sure you can call the pronunciation with "l" a spelling pronunciation, even if there was some uncertainty about the pronunciation in the 18th century. Also, according to Wikipedia (which cites a 1982 paper by Fred Cassidy), the name comes from Muscogee "kutuhlpa", which at least in spelling also has an "l" (and it explicitly states catawba/katába is not the source of the tree's name).


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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Vijay »

jal wrote:
finlay wrote:salmon
I've always pronounced that [ˈsæl.mn̩], no doubt because Dutch has an /l/ in it ([zɑɫm] or [ˈzɑ.ləm]).
I used to pronounce it with an /l/, too. In my case, it was just a spelling pronunciation.

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by jal »

I just found out "stative" is not [stætɪv], but apparently [steɪtɪv]. Which makes sense, since state [steɪt], but somehow I read short vowels when there's no orthographical <e> (I also used to have [rɒtɪk] instead of [rəʊtɪk] for rhotic).


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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Sumelic »

jal wrote:I just found out "stative" is not [stætɪv], but apparently [steɪtɪv]. Which makes sense, since state [steɪt], but somehow I read short vowels when there's no orthographical <e> (I also used to have [rɒtɪk] instead of [rəʊtɪk] for rhotic).


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For what it's worth, "rhotic" is somewhat irregular, because there's a tendency for vowels to be "short" in the syllable before the suffix -ic (there are still plenty of exceptions, though).

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Zaarin »

Vijay wrote:The Canadian guy I mentioned actually pronounced almond with a different vowel, too: [ʔæɫmn̩d̚] or something like that. An Irish lady I also knew in grad school had the same vowel but dropped the /l/: [ʔæmənd].
Don't Canadians pronounce everything with /æ/? I know I've heard Canadians say /pʰæstə/ before.
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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Soap »

Zaarin wrote:
Vijay wrote:The Canadian guy I mentioned actually pronounced almond with a different vowel, too: [ʔæɫmn̩d̚] or something like that. An Irish lady I also knew in grad school had the same vowel but dropped the /l/: [ʔæmənd].
Don't Canadians pronounce everything with /æ/? I know I've heard Canadians say /pʰæstə/ before.
I know it varies. My main exposure to Canadian accents is video game playthroughs on YouTube, but I've noticed that some Canadians say "Mario" with an /æ/ and others with /a/~/ɑ/. Ive also heard the word lava pronounced /lavə/ with a very fronted /a/, possibly even /æ/, generally by the same people who say Mario with the same vowel. Those who dont often have /ɒ/~/ɔ/ for the vowel of lava, but definitely not [a].
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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Vijay »

Zaarin wrote:
Vijay wrote:The Canadian guy I mentioned actually pronounced almond with a different vowel, too: [ʔæɫmn̩d̚] or something like that. An Irish lady I also knew in grad school had the same vowel but dropped the /l/: [ʔæmənd].
Don't Canadians pronounce everything with /æ/? I know I've heard Canadians say /pʰæstə/ before.
I used to know a Canadian guy who even used /æ/ in the middle syllable of the name "Obama."

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Travis B. »

I natively have the spelling pronunciation forms for many of these words (i.e. all of them except ones no one has /l/ for like talk, walk, and salmon), but I am familiar with the /l/-less non-spelling-pronounced versions of words like calm and palm. In more recent times I have started dropping the /l/ from these words, but, for some reason, keeping the /l/-colored vowel of /ɔ/; this might actually be a process of smoothing the diphthong [ɒo̯] that I have for /ɔl/ to just [ɒ] rather than actually moving towards a non-spelling-pronounced pronunciation.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Raphael »

I used to think that "Dáil", the name of the lower house of the Irish parliament, was pronounced "dah-eel". But then again, I never really figured out how words in Celtic languages are pronounced.

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Post by Soap »

Raphael wrote:I used to think that "Dáil", the name of the lower house of the Irish parliament, was pronounced "dah-eel". But then again, I never really figured out how words in Celtic languages are pronounced.
I thought it was /dalʲ/ until a few minutes ago, but I share your frustration and if I for some reason were made to say it out loud, I would just say "parliament".
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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by linguoboy »

Raphael wrote:I used to think that "Dáil", the name of the lower house of the Irish parliament, was pronounced "dah-eel". But then again, I never really figured out how words in Celtic languages are pronounced.
Before learning Irish, I pronounced this /deːl/.

Only the most narrow transcriptions would show this, but you can often hear a slight palatal offglide in the speech of those with Gaeltacht Irish.

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Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Salmoneus »

In English it's pronounced "doyle", and that seems more or less how it's pronounced on teanglann, and possibly on forvo, although the forvo versions are a bit harder to make out (partly because of the worse sound quality). Are you saying there shouldn't be an off-glide?
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