Here in NZ, we are blessed with geysers, but cursed by having people (most noticeably prisoners of Mother England) pronounce the word as in my subject line. The standard Zild pronunciation is Guy-zer, and the geezer pronunciation really grates. How say the rest of y'all?
I'm a Geezer geezer, me self - and have NEVER heard it pronounced as GUY-ser - sometimes as GAY-ser, although that's uncommon over here.
guy-zer it its, and all i have every heard..
i was expecting a odd story about some old fart, who did, and set off an explosion! Now that would have been an explosive geezer!
Darn you, Max--I got "no matches" for the third time, before I realized I had typed guyser; I remembered this:
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=44769
I'm a Geezer geezer, me self - and have NEVER heard it pronounced as GUY-ser - sometimes as GAY-ser, although that's uncommon over here.
Which rather neatly provides a sample towards confirming Max's original hypothesis ...
definitely "guy-zer" pronunciation here too. Geezer is only used to refer to an slightly tattered and delapidated old guy (which you ain't Rhu!!!)
geyser
In the usual British pronunciation "gey-" rhymes with key. A few people use the pronunciation [guy] for the 'hot spring' meaning. This is the usual pronunciation in the USA.
© From the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia.
Helicon Publishing LTD 2000
'hot spring' meaning
is there another?
Yes - cockney slang for "a male person" - hence I'm a Geezer geezer in my earlier post.
Also, it was the trade name (which became generic) for a gas-powered water-heater, popular over here in the 50s and 60s. A cognate name, of course, but different from a natural hot spring, nevertheless.
And, in all three cases, pronounced GEY-ser (to rhyme with KEY-)
I knew about the geezer thang, I waz wondering about whether there was another meaning for geyser...
was the water heater written geyser, or geezer?
geyser - it's only the slang term for person wot's writ "geezer"