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Our" is pronounced exactly as is "hour".

There's often a slight 'w' sound in there, so it is pronounced as in 'bower'.


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 
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In casual speech I say "are" and "our" as [aɹ] and "hour" as [awəɹ].
 
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Well, I wish I could use all those little punctuation signs, but I can't so my description is a lot less scientific. However, I definitely rhyme "are" with "far." My "our" is somewhere between "hour" and "are." I suppose that description isn't worth much, though.
 
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Most of the time, I say "our" to be just like "are". If I'm enunciating, I'll say it correctly, like in "Now is the winter of our discontent".
 
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This is one of the more noticeable differences between US and UK English pronunciations. Americans (and the Irish) tend to pronounce "hour" much as they pronounce "are". That's not true in any part of the UK that I am aware of.


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

I don't. As I said above, in casual speech, I tend to pronounce our and are the same, but hour is pronounced differently from them.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
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Or "our" - which is pronounced the same as "hour" in most (all?) of the UK.


Richard English
 
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I generally pronouce "our" and "hour" similarly, and "are" is different.


*******
"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
~Dalai Lama
 
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quote:
Originally posted by Richard English:
Or "our" - which is pronounced the same as "hour" in most (all?) of the UK.


I think I would pronounce our the same way as I pronounce are, unless I was putting on a Welsh accent. I just cannot imagine anybody starting the Lord's Prayer with hour father. The bit about arting in in heaven would just sound wrong.

There is a famous 1982 song which goes, 'are house in the middle of are street.' The video is interesting - it starts with somebody asking passers-by, 'have you seen are house?'
Our House Video
Madness are from London

There is also the 1970 Graham Nash song called Our House, which has some of the most beautiful lilting pronunciation of not just Our House, but also 'hours and hours'. He definitely pronounces our with two syllables. I think he was from Manchester.
 
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I think he was from Manchester

Yes, he was born in Blackpool, but brought up in Salford (part of Greater Manchester).


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 
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While we're on about titles, I've always heard and pronounced Thornton Wilder's play, Our Town, as /ɑɹtaʊn/.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
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Americans (and the Irish) tend to pronounce "hour" much as they pronounce "are".
Richard, Americans (though not all as I see from this thread) tend to rhyme "our" and "are," but "hour" is most definitely pronounced differently from "are."
 
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I've heard people from Tennessee using "MOLluh-nar" as a measure of speed. For example, "He hit that curve at better'n niney MOLluh-nar."

(Translation, if one is needed: 90+ mph)
 
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Reviving a thread...

I spoke at a conference recently and quoted a safety expert (Sir Liam Donaldson) from the UK: "To err is human, to cover up is unforgivable, and to fail to learn is inexcusable."

I rhymed "err" with "air," simply because I knew the attendees would think I was ignorant if I rhymed it with "stir." I suppose I perpetuated the incorrect pronunciation, and I imagine others do the same.
 
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Reviving Pronunciations thread
How do you pronounce "cigarette?" My kids chuckle at how I pronounce it...accent on the "ette." I've always pronounced it that way.
 
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I put the emphasis on the final syllable as well, and I think that's the usual pronunciation in the UK. Call it a "fag" instead, like we often do. That should really amuse them. Wink


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 
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I say, "murder weapon."


It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti
 
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My dad, who used to smoke, used to call it a "cancer stick."

"Fag" would be very politically incorrect in the U.S. It isn't a pejorative term for "homosexual" in England? It sure is here.
 
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And if you're fagged over there, you're just tired. Over here, you may be outed.

Not so much about pronunciation, but tonight's Mythbusters show was about the uses of duct tape. I've seen it called duck tape and carpenter's tape but there were several other names for it listed on the screen. I didn't catch them all. Does anyone have any other names for this product?

By the way, if you didn't see the show, they built a bridge over one hundred feet long using several plies of tape for the bridge and rope from twisted tape to hold onto. And walked across a drydock on it.
 
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Does anyone have any other names for this product?


200 mile per hour tape.

I once flew an airplane with the wingtips duct taped on. The tips are more decorative than functional on that particular plane, but still, they DID stay put at 120 mph.

Now, for much more on duct tape, watch the Red Green Show!
http://www.redgreen.com/

Geoff


It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti
 
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You beat me to it, Geoff. I was going to say "the handyman's secret weapon."
 
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Speaking of the "handyman's secret weapon", on that particular episode, Carrie destroyed a car by cutting parts off with the Jaws of Life. Then the two guys had to duct-tape it back together and run it over an obstacle course to see if it would hold together. Amaiingly, it survived the test.
 
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Reviving a thread...

How do you pronounce methane? I heard a report about it on NPR, and two people pronounced it differently, and neither pronounced it the way I do.
 
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I pronounce it "mee-thayne", which is the normal British pronunciation. I understand that the usual American pronunciation is "meth-ayne".


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 
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How do you pronounce methane?

/'mɛɵeɪn/


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
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Originally posted by Kalleh:

How do you pronounce methane?
Like this.
 
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Two people on the show pronounced it as:

MEE-thane
meh-THANE

Whereas I pronounce it as:

MEH-thane
 
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Ask the expert: http://www.mrmethane.com/


It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti
 
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Actually, its KOW-fart
 
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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!

The l is pronounced in palmetto because it ends one syllable leading into the second in this particular instance. The same is not true if there is only a "stub" second syllable, an example of which is balm and balmy. BTW the h isn't pronounced in vehement, which I find the preceding argument to be. Mayhaps I'll retire to an aisle/isle.
 
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quote:
Originally posted by Duncan Howell:
quote:
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??!!

If I heard that pronunciation, I'd think the person was talking about a MEDical-EVALuation and wonder what ailed him (or her). There's so much short-cutting going on these days.
 
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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.

Both Jheem's examples should begin with hard G's--It's Graphics Interchange Format for one and as for the other, well, it's not jhiggle, it's a giggle. Now I believe I'll getabyte.
 
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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.

That said, give that mispronunciation the air.
And BTW why did "mispronunciation" lose the second O, or, conversely, why did "mispronounce" pick in up?
 
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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.

...But yet here in the colonies we think of it as an agglomerate, hence "Oxbridge" (or is it Camford--one of those). Something to do with the nondilineated upper-crustiness we rightly or wrongly perceive, I reckon.
 
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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! Wink

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

I'm not sure but we'll suss it out, you betcha.
 
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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.

Dictionary.com has "vuh-GAIR-ee" as the first entry. I must say though I've never heard it in the singular before, though it's strictly legit that way.
 
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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. Frown

As the old joke goes--a Eastern Europa man of small stature on the run and with the hell-hounds hot on his trail, comes to a farmhouse and with ragged breath asks, "Will you please cache a small Czech?"
 
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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.

Not commenting on that but that site has as a related word "misandry". Anybody here see a correlation between these words? Baffles me.
 
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Originally posted by BobHale:
quote:
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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quote:
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]

I vote for the 2nd or else how would you pronounce "controversial"? That first choice is beyond poufy.
 
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Originally posted by Kalleh:
quote:
Yep, you are absolutely bonkers.

Well thanks a heap! Razz

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.

These BrE folks CONtribute a lot. Something to be said for consistency; I'll let someone else say it.
 
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quote:
Originally posted by wordmatic:
quote:
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

As much as I detested most of Dubya's policies, history may yet prove him right in our invasion and chaos-causing actions in Iraq. Not revisionist history at all; just not journalism.
 
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Both Jheem's examples should begin with hard G's--It's Graphics Interchange Format for one and as for the other, well, it's not jhiggle, it's a giggle. Now I believe I'll getabyte.

(Note to JazzboCR: I am responding to this because I used to post here under jheem account. Actually, funny enough vis-a-vis your name, I used to blog under the name Uncle Jazzbeau.)

The only way you could allege that GIF and gigabyte both "start with hard G's[/i] (and some would criticize your apostrophe there) is if the soft g pronunciation did not exist or if you declared it a mispronunciation.

I just don't think you get it. Many people in different regions pronounce all sorts of things differently. It's not an error in the dialects of the South (USA) that the vowel in pin and pen have merged. It's just how they pronounce it. Same with often (with a t (common) and without (less common but how I pronounce it) orerr. Many of these "errors" have their origins in our silly spelling system. Why write the t in often, the l in palm, or the b in dumb and debt if they are not to be pronounced?


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
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And BTW why did "mispronunciation" lose the second O, or, conversely, why did "mispronounce" pick in up?

Well, they are pronounced differently.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
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These BrE folks CONtribute a lot. Something to be said for consistency; I'll let someone else say it.

Well, yes, phonological change tends to be consistent (not always, but often).


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
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How do you pronounce the "a" in "scallops?" I got roundly criticized tonight for my apparent mispronunciation.
 
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How do you pronounce the "a" in "scallops?"

/æ/: same as the vowel sound in cat /'kæt/. The A-H Dictionary lists that pronunciation second, after one with a /ɑ/: the vowel in General American pronunciation of father /'fɑðɚ/. Was it a waiter or a relative?


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
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skollup
 
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I think it is important to consider that a regional pronunciation is not the same thing as a mispronunciation. While looking at the pronunciation key in the scallop entry in the A-H Dictionary, I noticed that three pronunciations were given, but I did not distinguish between two of them, as the vowel sound was the same in both. (This is not true in other national standard varieties of English. For example, I do not have two different vowel sounds in father and not: i.e., I pronounce both vowels /ɑ/, an open back unrounded vowel (link). But, RP (UK English) does distinguish, pronouncing them respectively /ɑː/ and /ɒ/. Some Canadian English speakers distinguish them, too (goofy?), but I am not sure that some Canadians don't mimic an RP-ish pronunciation for prestige reasons. The IPA vowel charts on this Wikipedia article are quite useful, but, of course, only if you are familiar with IPA (link).


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
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