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Our" is pronounced exactly as is "hour".

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Originally posted by Richard English:
Or "our" - which is pronounced the same as "hour" in most (all?) of the UK.

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I think he was from Manchester

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Americans (and the Irish) tend to pronounce "hour" much as they pronounce "are".

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Does anyone have any other names for this product?

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Originally posted by Kalleh:

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Originally posted by C J Strolin:
My two cents: I pronounce the "H" in "vehicle" but it's a soft "H". I also pronounce the "soft H" (is there such a term?) in "whale" and have been soundly criticized by troglodyte acquaintances for speaking (to use a Britishism) "posh."

And, yes, some people do pronounce the "T" in "often" but you'll notice that this is the third pronunciation listed. Informally, the order listed in the dictionary translates to:
1st listed - The CORRECT way as widely agreed upon by right-thinking individuals, myself included.
2nd listed - The more or less acceptable deviation from the norm used by both free spirits and those who simply aren't aware of the 1st listed pronunciation.
3rd listed - Well, OK, if you absolutely insist, say it this way and, technically, you won't be wrong, but Jeeze!

BUT!! What is all this nonsense about no "L" in "palm"?? No "L" in "salmon," of course not! No "L" in "almond," no argument from me. But you pronounce "palm" to rhyme with "Sam"?! And the dictionary backs you up, yet??! You pronounce it in "palmetto," don't you? Or maybe you don't! Good Lord (perhaps pronounced "Good ord"), I'm shocked and dismayed at yet another example of the trampling of our beloved language.

It's official. The world is going to hell in a handbasket!

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Originally posted by Duncan Howell:

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Originally posted by BobHale:

Here "palm" rhymes with "harm", "charm", "alarm", "farm"

To make that work, it seems to me that one would have to insert an "r" into "palm" and dump the "l", OR invent "hom", "chom", "alom", and "fom". Which is it? Perhaps there's an alternative that I've overlooked.

In regard to "medieval"....I've always said MED-E-EVIL. However, a good friend of mine who is well enough versed in things medieval that he taught history at a major U.S. university when he was younger than any of his students, always says MED-EVAL. But, What does he know??!!

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Originally posted by jheem:
It isn't mispronouncing! Not if people around you say it like that.

For the record, I didn't say she was mispronouncing it, rather I asked how she pronounced it. The diphthong in mauve and stove for me is the same diphthong as in toad and road. I think I've heard some folks pronounce mauve so that it has the same vowel as in law and taut: i.e., the shrimp in IPA which looks like a c that has been been flipped on it vertical axis.

And it just dawned on me that GIF (a file format for pictures), which I pronounce /'gIf/, is also pronounced /'dZIf/, in parallel with gigabyte. And, I guess we shouldn't get into how folks pronounce terabyte, petabyte, exabyte, zettabyte, or yottabyte.

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Originally posted by neveu:
I'm with Kalleh on this one. I hear it pronounced 'air' about 90% of the time.

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Originally posted by Richard English:
Quote "... it's very difficult to travel between the two on public transport - maybe there's a reason for that..."

There is indeed a reason - and it was called Dr Beeching. In the late 1960s he was charged with the job of making the railways pay (a daft idea since railways have never made money since WW1, and nobody ever expects the roads to make money) and decided to start by closing those lines that didn't show a profit. The "University Line" that joined Oxford and Cambridge was one casualty of that ill-informed policy.

It's much easier to close a railway than it is to build one and thus Oxford and Cambridge remain separated.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
No, I hadn't heard of "faff" either, and I too just love it. Tsuwm's dictionary defines it as, "to spend your time doing a lot of unimportant things instead of the thing you should be doing." I surely have a lot of faff going on during the weekends!

How many other words have 4 letters and 3 of them are the same consonant?

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
How do you pronounce "vagary?" I was confused by the MW pronunciation guide, which has three pronunciations.

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Originally posted by arnie:

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Apparently some people pronounce it as "catch?"

I've never heard that myself, but it wouldn't surprise me.

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Originally posted by Seanahan:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=Zoanthropy

I believe boanthropy is a pun taken from this word, which I've never heard of, although the roots stuck together make it pretty obvious once you see the definition.

Zoanthropy is a medical condition, the delusion that one is an animal. Boanthropy is evidently(from wikipedia stub article) the delusion that one is an ox, although "bovanthropy" seems a little more natural, boanthropy was probably chosen for the rhyme.

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Originally posted by BobHale:

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Originally posted by pearce:
There may be regional and national differences between American English and British English pronunciation. The OED plainly omits the l-sound in both the verb and the noun BALK, and in the past participle BALKED. But in the different word BALKAN, the l- is pronounced.

Looking it up on Dictionary.com shows 6 different sources only 1 of which shows the l being pronounced and then only secondarily. How do y'all pronounce "caulk"?

Collins English Dictionary on the other hand shows "balk" with both pronunciations - with and without the "l".

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Originally posted by pearce:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by arnie:
Let's try another common word with many variations of pronunciation: CONTROVERSY. Here are the two I most often hear:
Cun---troh'--vussy
Con'--truh--versy
[the ' indicates the emphasis]

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Originally posted by Kalleh:

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Yep, you are absolutely bonkers.

Well thanks a heap!

For the record, Richard, Shu has exonerated me on the "decade" vs. "decayed" front. The way I pronounce "decade" (even though I am "bonkers") is dehCAID. The way Shu and I pronounce "decayed" is deeCAID.
On decade--When saying the Rosary, it's always a DEK-ED of beads, or so every nun I ever knew would have it.

My daughter, who is every bit as hard on me as Sean is, says that someone at her work says: imPETus, instead of IMpetus. Is my daughter's friend bonkers, too, Sean?

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Originally posted by zmježd:
Working with programmers from different parts of the anglophone world, I've always marvelled how stress accent is shifting. My favorite is BrE DIStributed ~ AmE disTRIButed, as in the phrase distributed objects.

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Originally posted by wordmatic:

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Nice to see you here, Wordmatic, and I haven't forgotten about workshopping your limericks. Right now I am going through a WEAP (for non-OEDILFers that's when people focus on workshopping your limericks), so I am busy with that.

My most recent foible is "core-DOANED"

Well Kalleh, "core-DOANED" is pretty funny, I've gotta admit! Don't worry about getting to my limericks in any sort of a rush. We had a huge storm here last night that knocked out all electrical power for over 300,000 households and the power company has triaged the repairs with us at the bottom of the heap. They say we will have no power until Sunday. hopefully this is not true, but OTOH, if it is, it would probably be our just desserts for having an idiot president like "W" who has made such conditions exist for everyone in Iraq. I have power at work but should be working at work instead of playing with words online (darn!)

I do notice that the wordies on this site seem to be far more relaxed and less tense about RULES than they are over at OEDILF, and I realize that some of these wordies are also those wordies. I like it that the wordplay games here have no real rules, which just proves what a slob I am in general. ;-)

Cheers and enjoy your WEAP.

WM