Pronunciation

[MarcusCardiff]

I recently watched a “60 minutes” broadcast and something needs mentioning.

 

Andy Rooney made a talking point at the end of his show; he was talking about the months of the year and complained about spelling.

 

This is paraphrased but is the essence of his argument.

 

Why is "febury" spelled "February" when it’s pronounced "febury”.

He went on to assert that it's ridiculous that words aren’t spelled how they are pronounced.

But any moron knows that February is actually pronounced exactly as it is spelled.

 

I'm not nit picking Colin Powell can pronounce his name any way he likes. It is his name.

 

I do take exception when some people (we all know who the culprits are) decide to pronounce words in any way they choose.

 

What is this teaching children?, nothing more than words have no meaning and can be misunderstood in any way deemed suitable.

 

There are many examples of this moronic misuse of language by the mass media; I just hope it stops soon.

 

Edit P.S. I'm not talking about typos. misspelling or grammatical errors, that is important in a schoolroom but acceptable in real life.

[Olurum]

I'm not too sure about things being taken out of context due to pronunciation. Although rap songs are notorious for twisting and bending words so much so that it 'rhymes' with the last line and tries to make sense.

 

They way people pronounce things probably comes down to their accents rather than the way they are spellt though. Although some exceptions are understandable, for instance tell someone who's never heard of the place before to read 'Leicester', like an american tourist or so.

 

There are people who seem to campaign for simpler spellings to make them more phonetic. But that is akin to text talk, and even as a non-native english speaker who still comes across words where I need be told how to pronounce them, I would detest the dumbing down of the english language. It always reminds me of that one well known joke post:

 

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility.

 

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase in plan that would be known as "Euro-English"

 

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c".

Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

 

The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of the "k".

This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have one less letter.

 

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f".

This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

 

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

 

Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they should go away.

 

By the 4th year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

 

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

 

ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!!

And zen ve vil take over ze vorld!!!

[ZeonicGlory]

That post is starting to look like a German with bad English to me.

[MajKrAzAm]

Both pronunciations of February are acceptable. The first 'r' is dropped by those who prefer 'febuary' because of the difficulty in pronouncing two 'r's' that are close to each other. Another reason could be over the confusion between the endings of January and February, since both months are reciprocal and have similar endings, people wrongly assume that they should be pronounced the same.

 

On the issue of name mispronunciations, most errors occur over the transliteration of names into different alphabets. Take for example 'Putin', in English this would be pronounced Pyu-tin, although a more accurate transliteration would be Pou-Tyeen. This error should be expected given that the Roman alphabet only has 26 letters whereas the modern Russian Cyrillic alphabet has 32 letters. And thus we cannot accurately represent the 'soft t'.

 

I'm not too sure about things being taken out of context due to pronunciation. Although rap songs are notorious for twisting and bending words so much so that it 'rhymes' with the last line and tries to make sense.

Manipulating pronunciations is not limited to rap. Quite the opposite - it has been a important element of lyricism throughout the majority of English prose for over a millennia.

[Sarya]

It's actually 33 letters.

[Birrii]

People from England are used to speak English. They just know how to pronounce it. They have kind of "their" rules how to pronounce for example A (A bottle). In Norwegian we say A like how you sing it; Aaaaaaaaa.

People from other countries are just used to their pronounciation.

 

PronounciATION. (pronawnciEYSHON)

In German ATION (Situation) is pronounced like this: (azion)

 

Well, it's the same as always, someone that doesn't speak English THAT well is trying to correct it.

 

Failure. I hope we and you all have learned something.

 

:3

[Michlo]

People from England are used to speak English. They just know how to pronounce it. They have kind of "their" rules how to pronounce for example A (A bottle). In Norwegian we say A like how you sing it; Aaaaaaaaa.

People from other countries are just used to their pronounciation.

 

PronounciATION. (pronawnciEYSHON)

In German ATION (Situation) is pronounced like this: (azion)

 

Well, it's the same as always, someone that doesn't speak English THAT well is trying to correct it.

 

Failure. I hope we and you all have learned something.

 

:3

 

Umm, not quite. If there is anybody who can (and sometimes should) be able to correct another's pronunciation it is a native speaker to a foreign speaker. Just as I would welcome and hope you would correct me if I were trying to speak Norwegian, I, as an Englishman believe it my right to be able to do so for English.

 

Of course, language these days is becoming more and more diluted (unfortunately, to my mind) and many just use lazy speak verbally or textese as I call it in e-chat.

 

Cheers.

[Luminiari]

I was brought up amongst those who took pride in the way they spoke English and made every effort to use perfect diction and pronunciation.

 

That said, I do often get annoyed when I hear people saying 'Pronownseeayshun' when it SHOULD be "pronuhnseeashun".

 

Forgive me if that made no sense.

[dezdimona]

Why is "febury" spelled "February" when it’s pronounced "febury”.

He went on to assert that it's ridiculous that words aren’t spelled how they are pronounced

 

I believe he was being sarcastic as most people do not pronounce it as it supposed to me.

 

those atipan ng pawid iwasto iba buongpaligid kanila supposed kaalaman ng kanila mag-ari wika ay sa katunayan kabilugan ng ang kanilang sarili!