Go on, go mad and order an Indian takeaway!!

Enjoy whatever you have  

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@*.*..lola..*.* wrote:

You want fried rice?

 

I can't pronounce the word 'crisps' properly.

I say crispspsps.

 

If I try to stop adding the extra psps at the end, I end up missing the p off altogether and say criss.

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My eldest son used to say crispspsps when he was very young, now 40 years later he's managed to refine it to crispsps.

The Polish city of Lodz is pronounced woodj (with a long oo sound like food)

There's even a video to explain it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCnS4a2Mnjg

Lovely girl, nice jumper.

Ah, JD, why is Digoxin pronounce Dye-jok-sin?

 Probably the same reason that digest is pronounced dye-jest and not diggest.

The prefix di is from a Greek root meaning two/twice/double. I think whether you pronounce it with a hard or soft sound depends on whether the following consonant is hard or soft or whether it is followed by a single or double consonant or even whether the following consonant is followed by a vowel. The English language is full of irregularities of pronunciation, spelling and grammar because it has evolved from many sources.

Eg. digest has a hard i and a soft g but the g is followed by a vowel

       digress has a hard i and a hard g but the g is followed by a consonant

       digger has a soft i and a hard g because in this case it is a double consonant

All very confusing.

No wonder people find English very hard to master?

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@cee-dee wrote:

No wonder people find English very hard to master?

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I love the way kiddies are taught to spell these days lol,  kicking ka for k and cirly is for c etc etc xx

Most cases spelling how it sounds, but then you get to silent letters so how do the get past that bit, this very confusing, no wonder our children don't or can't read any more.

cee dee, just look at there, their, to, too and two.

If some people born and bred here can get those wrong with which they should use and when what chance has someone trying to learn the language got !

If we're moving in to misused words, you missed out "they're", frequently people write "there" instead. Same with "you're" and "your".

What about mischiev-ee-ous.  Where on earth did that come from?????????

I frequently see the word 'loose/loosing instead of lose/losing.

And the one that really bugs me 'Appauling for appalling.

Back when I was at school the only way to learn difficult pronunciations was through practice which involved reading aloud in class and being corrected by a knowledgeable teacher. That hasn't happened in schools for a long time now. There are word endings with such a variety of pronunciations that it's virtually impossible to learn them any other way. Take for example the ending ....ough.

Enough, cough, plough, dough, thought, through, thorough, hiccough. That's eight different pronunciations without the Gaelic variants like lough and there are probably many more.

English is constantly changing and we need very high level of teaching skills to keep on top of it in schools. From when the Oxford English Dictionary was first published until around 20 years ago there were only two complete German words in it, wanderlust and hinterland. Both quite useful terms as there is no single English word equivalent. Now we see lots more creeping into speech and printed works like.....ersatz meaning substitute, zeitgeist meaning 'spirit of the age' or thereabouts and schadenfreude meaning 'the act of taking pleasure from other peoples' misfortunes'. (What a useful word that is)

We absorb new words all the time from several other languages which makes it difficult for foreigners to learn but it certainly makes the language more vibrant and interesting on the whole. As far as I know English is the only language that has such a variety of words that we need to publish a Thesaurus, I think that's something we should be proud of.

Seems to be a lot of controversy on this thread

But is it  con-troversy  or contro-versy

Then there is Hiroshima

Is that Hiro-sheema  or hirosh-imma

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@astrologica wrote:

Recently I have heard some TV presenters conjure up an 'a' in the middle of the word 'athletics'...pronouncing it 'athAletics'. It sounds really ridiculous!

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Yes, heard that all the time during the Olympic & Commonwealth games, even from Athletes, how can you say what you are, wrong ????

I  watch a lot of US documentaries loads of annoyance's there, heres a few

Sodder instead of Solder

Chassie instead of Shassie (chassis) 

Aluminium

using Regimen instead of Regime

Vite-amin instead of vitamin

erb instead of herb

Al, I've heard both Bow ee and Boe ee several times this morning.

Yanks call Him 'Boo ie' like  the knife

Watched a documentary last night about the 80's and all the way through it, the presenter kept irritatingly pronouncing 'entrepreneur' as entreprenure (rhyming with manure).

I always say entreprenerr?

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@mustard-tree wrote:

Seems to be a lot of controversy on this thread

But is it  con-troversy  or contro-versy

 

Then there is Hiroshima

Is that Hiro-sheema  or hirosh-imma

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Contro-versy

Hirosh-imma

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@marshallhouse wrote:

What about mischiev-ee-ous.  Where on earth did that come from?????????

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That's one of my favourite words 

So, how do you say it Lola? (El-oh-el-ay, Lola, ooo that song)

Some say "miss-chee-vus", some say "Miss-chi-vus".

Try this:- http://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/mischievous