M
Mike Barnes
.... for, amongst other things, bananals.Bob Henson said:
B
Bob Henson
I was similarly amused 40 years ago when I moved from Derbyshire toNY said:I ought to have remembered that since I was at university at Bristol. The
porter in my hall of residence was a real Bristle man through and through.
When he got fed up with people taking the piss out of his accent, he
produced a humorous book entitled "Krek Waiters Peak Bristle" and said "Ere,
learn that, then you can talk like me tool". He became known as "the talking
tool" after that
It's interesting that "Bristle" is brimming over with Ls because the
so-called Cockney accent (though it applies to more than just the Bow Bells
area of London) avoids them as much as possible - hence "a bott-w of miwk".
Gloucestershire. Derbyshire has hard "t"s and Gloucestershire doesn't have
any, so "dirty water" was "dotty watter" in Ilkeston (itself an odd
pronunciation - "Ill Kess Tun") but in Tetbury it is "dir'y war'er" with
slightly rolled "r"s. Our (so they say) county poems go:-
Derbyshire born 'n' Derbyshire bred,
Strong inth' arm and 'wake inth' 'ed
Oi can' read 'n' Oi can't roight,
But tha' don't reely ma''er,
Cuz Oi comes from Gloucestershire
'N Oi can droive a tra''or.
If that really is too much for anyone else, a tra''er is a tractor - no "c"
or "t" .
--
Bob
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England
Obsolete : The computer you have.
State of the Art : The computer you can't afford.
B
Bob Henson
Arrr. S'roight!Mike said:
R
Robin Bignall
weak, tha knows.
Gerroff!
J
J. P. Gilliver (John)
I don't think I used the word, but in repeating what others had said, IKen Blake said:
tended towards "mini-" - but then, like Gene, I only relatively recently
learnt the "correct" spelling (which I thus resent, for no good reason).
C
Char Jackson
In their defense, at least NU-ku-lar has the right number of syllables,
unlike NU-clear. ;-)
Other than that, I agree.
C
Char Jackson
If you're going to use the British spelling, then of course it makes sense
to use the British pronunciation. Personally, I prefer the American spelling
and pronunciation.
C
Char Jackson
On the west side of the pond, it's pronounced AL-jee, by academics speakingWhen I was taught Latin, (and Latin doesn't change much, even these days
) the ae plural was pronounced as in "eye", hence the "g" before it was
always hard. In many years of studying it was always been pronounced that
way by academics, at least. If that were not the case, the singular would
be pronounced "alja" which would indeed, be singular.
in public as well as by two old men sitting on a park bench staring at an
overgrown pond.
Yes, I know, I overused the word pond.
C
Char Jackson
Agreed, but it's important to pronounce it correctly. The g's in gigabyte
are pronounced like the g's in 'get big dog'.
Every once in a while I run across someone who didn't quite get the joke in
Back To The Future and get words like gigabyte and gigawatt wrong. It's
pretty jarring when it happens.
J
J. P. Gilliver (John)
I didn't get the joke.Char Jackson said:
I
Ian Jackson
"NU-clee-arr" also has three syllablesChar Jackson said:
C
choro
BTW, how do you pronounce Gigolo? With a G as in Go or as the J in
Junior? And if the latter, then why?
Incidentally what is the 3rd letter of the Greek alphabet? And how is it
pronounced?--
choro
*****
C
choro
See my Pasta la Vista below!
Let us not forget that the root word is Nucleus hence the correct
adjective must be Nuclear. --
choro
*****
Etymology, gentlemen, Etymology!
Let us not forget that the root word is Nucleus hence the correct
adjective must be Nuclear. --
choro
*****
J
John Williamson
One of each.choro said:
The first one soft, modified by the "i" following it, the second hard,
as the "o" doesn't modify it.
N
NY
choro said:
Maybe it's because I'm British rather than American, but I pronounce the
word with three syllables: NUKE-lee-AH.
And then there's the other shibboleth: ambulance. HTF do people manage to
get AMB-lee-ance (rather than AMB-you-lance) out of that?
There are a few US versus UK differences: laboratory is LAB-ra-t'ry in the
US but lab-ORR-a-t'ry in the UK. To my British ears, the US pronunciation
always sounds suspiciously similar to lavatory
And don't get me started on "kilometre". Being from a scientific/engineering
background I pronounce it "KILL-o-MEE-ter" rather "kill-OMM-i-tah", on the
grounds that every prefix and every base unit in the SI system has its
stress on the first syllable: MILL-i, MI-cro, KILL-o, GI-ga etc and MEE-ter,
FAR-rad, SEC-cond etc. But I'm thinking of changing my middle name to
"Canute" because I know when I'm fighting a losing battle which I'll never
be able to win
And as for "Jiggawatts" (with the G pronounced as a J), well that belongs
only in Back to the Future
J
John Williamson
Even the Welsh pronounce it Amb-you-lance. They spell it "ambiwlans",NY said:
though.
I
Ian Jackson
I believe it's bad form for gigolos to giggle while they are doing their
jiggling.
W
Wolf K
On 2013-08-14 6:49 AM, NY wrote:
[...]
[...]
Jigger whats???And as for "Jiggawatts" (with the G pronounced as a J), well that
belongs only in Back to the Future
W
Wolf K
Gamma, and it's a "hard G" in modern Greek, and Greek-derived words in
English, such a giga-. Its pronunciation in classical Greek is
apparently a matter of dispute. Most people say the hard G, but
somewhere I saw a claim that it's more like the ch in Bach, because the
chi is actually a K-H, ie, a strongly aspirated K, just as the phi is
P-H. Ask a Greek scholar if you want more pedantry. This is it for me,
for today. ;-)
Have a good day.
C
choro
What you say applies to words of Italian origin. True. But not
necessarily to words derived from other languages.
As is always the case in the pronunciation of English words derived from
other languages, there is the etymologically correct pronunciation OR
the mis-pronunciation that through common usage has become the accepted
pronunciation.
*Economy* is one word that was always mispronounced in English with the
E being pronounced as in "thin" or "Limpet" until Gordon Brown, the then
British Economy Minister, started pronouncing it correctly as the E in
DELL or Elliptical or Etymology which, I remember, at the time raised
quite a few eyebrows among the British. But Gordon Brown was pronouncing
it correctly.
But I wouldn't dream of pronouncing the first G in Gigantic as G in
Going, going, gone! Why "Gigabyte" is pronounced with the G as in Go, I
wouldn't know except that maybe people are not au fait with the
pronunciation of such words in their original languages and because we
rely too much on the printed as opposed to the spoken word these days
particularly where technical jargon is concerned.