Words you just can't pronounce.

[Doug B]

Always makes me smile when folks put an extra R in bath & grass, also when someone who wants a Mr Whippy but pronounces scone “skon” do they ask for a kon :roll:

How do you pronounce 'wrath' out of interest ? Roth as in Tim Roth or wrath to rhyme with the funny way you pronouce bath ? :lol:

Wrath obviously as it has an r in it unlike bath (hammer) :lol: :lol:

 

[Phil Pascoe]

How do you pronounce "ghoti"?

Fish.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I always have difficulty with вцІІѕћїт

Not always.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Hangovers ........ the wrath of grapes.

 

[Doug B]

What proportion of the English speaking world pronounce "bath" to rhyme with "math", do you think? Yep, you northerners are in a minority.

& very happy to be so

You're committing the cardinal sin of thinking that spelling is some form of guide to pronunciation. In Spanish and Italian it is. Not in English. How do you pronounce "ghoti"?

No I’m not :lol:

 

[Trevanion]

What proportion of the English speaking world pronounce "bath" to rhyme with "math", do you think? Yep, you northerners are in a minority.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone around here put the extra r in bath, definitely bah-th.

 

[Stepper]

Always makes me smile when folks put an extra R in bath & grass, also when someone who wants a Mr Whippy but pronounces scone “skon” do they ask for a kon :roll:

How do you pronounce 'wrath' out of interest ? Roth as in Tim Roth or wrath to rhyme with the funny way you pronouce bath ? :lol:

Wrath obviously as it has an r in it unlike bath (hammer) :lol: :lol:

No w in bath either.

 

[MikeG.]

.......No I’m not :lol:

Yes you are:

....... has an r in it unlike bath :lol: :lol:

 

[Bm101]

English.
Where phonetics is spelled with a p an an h.

 

[Andy Kev.]

Always makes me smile when folks put an extra R in bath & grass, also when someone who wants a Mr Whippy but pronounces scone “skon” do they ask for a kon :roll:

What proportion of the English speaking world pronounce "bath" to rhyme with "math", do you think? Yep, you northerners are in a minority.

You're committing the cardinal sin of thinking that spelling is some form of guide to pronunciation. In Spanish and Italian it is. Not in English. How do you pronounce "ghoti"?

I think that a lot of people don't understand that there are two aspects to language: speaking and hearing. Many would say that reading and writing are involved as well but the written word is just an attempt to get the spoken word down on paper. In principle that works perfectly if:

a. Your alphabet is 100% phonetic (as is the case with Russian) i.e. for every sound there is a letter.

b. There is virtually no regional variation in pronunciation (as is largely the case in Russian).

Our alphabet is, due to the glorious wealth of regional accents and dialects which we have, on a hiding to nothing. For instance an unstressed vowel in English usually takes on the pronunciation of "e" in "the". We need a letter specifically for that sound. As it happens there is one in the International Phonetic Alphabet: it is the letter "e" looking the wrong way i.e. reversed from left to right. We could also do with reintroducing the Anglo-Saxon letter for "th". Actually we need both variants, one for the unvoiced pronunciation (thin) and one for the voiced (this).

I could go on but you probably get the idea.

One curse of English is so called Oxford English or Received Pronunciation. Much of the blame for this must be laid at the door of a chap called Sheridan who was kicking around in the 18th century. It is from his efforts at promoting Oxford English that we ended up with the terrible crime of many people looking down on regional accents.

For anybody interested in this and the wider aspects of language, I'd recommend The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language by David Crystal.

 

[Doug B]

.......No I’m not :lol:

Yes you are:

....... has an r in it unlike bath :lol: :lol:

You’ll be telling me next you pronounce coins with a y in it :shock: .......madness

 

[Phil Pascoe]

How do you pronounce it? Cwans?

 

[transatlantic]

Oh my god my years are bleeding!




..that's ears by the way

 

[rannndy]

On one of my first visits to Christchurch (NZ) I had difficulty with the very English names on some of their streets. I was told that Leicester St was not pronounced Lee-Chester, but Lester. Worcester St was not pronounced War-Chester, but Wooster. And Gloucester St was not pronounced Glou-Chester, but Glosster. So when asked where I was staying I told them it was a hotel in Manster St - but they said it was pronounced Manchester :roll:

Go figure.

Cheers, Vann.

Pronounce all them words like that in Lincolnshire

 

[Yojevol]

On one of my first visits to Christchurch (NZ) I had difficulty with the very English names on some of their streets. I was told that Leicester St was not pronounced Lee-Chester, but Lester. Worcester St was not pronounced War-Chester, but Wooster. And Gloucester St was not pronounced Glou-Chester, but Glosster. So when asked where I was staying I told them it was a hotel in Manster St - but they said it was pronounced Manchester

You seem to confusing "... chester" with "....cester" "..

How do you pronounce "ghoti"?

fish - Hemingway, wasn't it?

 

[Doug B]

fish - Hemingway, wasn't it?

Think it’s usually attributed to Shaw but with little evidence, the original passage ghoti is from supposedly predates Shaws birth

 

[AES]

Great thread this, very "amusing" n sorry I've only just found it.

One of my wife's German girlfriends, now retired, used to be a professional German/English/German translator.

She once gave me the below (as it's 2 A4 pages long I've added it here as a .pdf).

To save those who perhaps wouldn't other wise be bothered to open it, here's a taster - it starts off:

"Dearest creature in creation
studying English pronunciation,
....... "

and as said, it goes on and on picking all sorts of "anomalies" which I believe will tax the most competent of English speakers within the 1st few lines - "corps and corpse, horse and worse" indeed!

View attachment Dearest creature.pdf

Someone above pointed out that some languages are "easier" to speak because once you've learnt the basic rules of what letter makes what sound, you always come up with the correct pronunciation. German is similar, and their "rules" seem to work fine in about 90+% of cases. But "Swiss German"? Another kettle of fish entirely!

I think that one of the "problems" with English pronunciation is the rich diversity of accents and dialects the "English" have, AND the fact that in reality, today's English is a diverse mix of inputs from many other languages, "classical" and non.

Regarding the point of "Received pronunciation" (and it's now less-common BBC variant/s) this was, I thought, started off because a bunch of "foreign Johnny" kings and queens invaded us centuries ago

Have fun with the above

 

[Chris152]

Quinoa.

 

[MikeG.]

Quinoa.

I've never tried, never felt the need. Same with "Domino".

 

[Nigel Burden]

Interesting thread and I'd like to extend the conversation to the actual voices.

How did most American young women these days now sound like a gerbil being castrated ? Doris Day didn't sound like that. What was the catalyst to cause this ?

And it's coming here. Watching one young lady on First Dates - Valentine Special....neither I nor wife could comprehend what she was saying. So fast, no enunciation and that gerbil ...well, he won't be having any offspring. Mind you, her fella was pretty unintelligible as well.

Having lost a fair amount of my high pitch hearing and suffering from tinnitus, this is a particular gripe of mine. Many, particularly younger people, speak too fast and fail to pronounce consonants.
My daughter drives me mad. She never seems to have enough time to say what she wants with the consequence that her speech is garbled. What infuriates me is that she speaks perfectly clear intelligible English at work. :evil:

I had a message on my answering machine last week from Aviva requesting me to call back. I couldn't make out what the number was and it took my wife two or thee attempts to decipher it. This was a classic case of the operator speaking too fast. Unfortunately the number was withheld, so I couldn't even use the caller list on the phone to find out what the number was.

Nigel.

Nigel.