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To begin with, I am upon a new fangled hand-held thing that confuses me, so please ignore any typo's etc, due to the incesent programing that tries to anticipate my wordage.

The other day, Tuesday I believe, I was enjoying a culinary delight within our local gab spot, when I happend to note the over head monitor. The tintalating questons that were posted caught my attention. Namely one in particular; "What three months in the year have only one syllable?"

Needess to say, I could think of only two: May and June. Thus, when the answer revealed the third to be that of March, I was left utterly confused.

And now to explain, as well as pose my question unto our poobah's and other.

I have always pronounced "March" as two syllables. Mar Ch. Yet looking at sites such as Merrium-Websters or my dictionary, New World Dictionay, they show "March" as a single syllable.
Okay, that is odd, I think. So, next I checked to make sure that I understood just what a syllable was. According to what I read, a syllable is denoted by a vowel, and not the actual beat to stress of the actual letters of a word. By this time my mind began to self implode.

My two part question is this:

1.) Is March a one to two syllable word?
2.) If one, how in the, phonetic verse, does a person propperly pronounce it with out giving a two beat or stress upon the two main sections?

Arg!!!!

Thank you for the indulgence and my lack of links. (Growls at her Pandigital)


Rev. Alimae
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I am having difficulty imagining March pronounced with more than one syllable. Are you adding a schwa in between the r and the ch?


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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perhaps a schwa after the ch?


formerly known as etaoin...
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there ain't no schwas in March (to my ear), even if you march to the beat of a different drum.

You can lead a horse to water
But u can't make him drink,
U can lead a human by the nose
But you can't make him think
I may be lost sometimes
But i don't follow anyone
I'll always march to the beat
The beat of a different drum

-Lower Class Brats

Last edited by tsuwm; 01/22/11 09:30 PM.
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Okay, I now have access to my main computer so this should prove slightly easier.

No zmjezhd, I do not place any extra sounds, such as "adding a schwa in between the r and the ch".
Nor that of "a schwa after the ch" as suggested by Buffallo.

May hap if I were to make a .wav file and post it; then it could be heard on how I pronounce "March". I will see about doing this and posting tomorrow.

Quite simply, though, I pronounce it as Mar, as in Mark, with out the K or Cah sound on the end, then stress the Ch; as in the first part of Choose.
The “M” being hard, “ar” soft, ending with “Ch” as hard again.

*shrugs*
Then again, maybe all of this is just the delusions of a warped mind, made mushy by to much stress and receptors exploding willynilly.

I appreciate the posts so far though.


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I can understand the idea of the "ch" sounding like a second syllable. it has a weight of its own (at least the way I pronounce it). those big chunky consonants sometimes want to stand on their own.

but I wouldn't have thought of it as a separate syllable.


formerly known as etaoin...
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That kinda counts as one syllable in English.

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Originally Posted By: Buffalo Shrdlu
I can understand the idea of the "ch" sounding like a second syllable. it has a weight of its own (at least the way I pronounce it). those big chunky consonants sometimes want to stand on their own.

but I wouldn't have thought of it as a separate syllable.


So in other words, it is, within the English lexicon, actually the "ar " sound in March that is deemed the syllabic aspect. Thus rendering the two distinct sounds as just consonates and dialect?

Last edited by AlimaeHP; 01/22/11 11:23 PM. Reason: pandigital stikes with what it thought should be.

Rev. Alimae
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perhaps a schwa after the ch?

What, you mean s/he talks like Chico Marx?


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Actually they're all one syllable:

Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr (well, OK, maybe not this one)
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec

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