>Here's hoping Anu will see this and offer an insight on how he works.
why don't you ask him directly, via the Contact Us link (top right)
meanwhile, here is what he wrote in AWADmail, issue no. 8 (Mar. 26, 1998)
While reducing a spoken sound to its written form is tough enough in any language, it is nearly impossible to accurately represent pronunciation information using only the lowest common denominator of characters -- those found on a standard English keyboard. Not all systems have the capability to show phonetic characters. (Once Unicode is more widely adopted, it would be possible to show all IPA characters but for now we have to do with the seven bit ASCII character set). It must also be noted that the pronunciation of words varies a great deal from region to region and any single way of pronouncing a word cannot be called the only correct one. In that spirit, the pronunciation guide provided with the words here should be taken as an approximation and not as a precise phonetic equivalent.
If you disagree with a given pronunciation or anything else in AWAD, please drop us a line at the email address (words AT wordsmith.org). Due to the large volume of messages, we can't always respond to you but we do read all messages. -Anu
Last edited by tsuwm; 08/04/2011 7:11 AM.
