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wwh Offline
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Dear fishonabike: Ax, shucks. I'm in awe of your awesome erudition.


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the first is the UK way of saying the word, the second the US..

Actually both pronunciations are used in the UK, Helen, just by different bunches of people. It's partly a regional thing, and certainly used to be a "class" thing.

I suspect that people over here who say "gar-idj" (yeah, and accepted that the opposite is "gar-aaj" without a d) would also pronounce cinema as ending with "-uh" rather than "-aa". At least I do.

Be interesting to see other Brit responses here.


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I'm in awe of your awesome erudition

There are times when we could really do with the ability to record sound files on this Board.

Although I think I've got just the tone and pronunciation of this one.


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Interesting you should bring this up just now, as my youngest was just asking this question this past week.

Like others, I've oscillated in my own pronunciation of this word.

k



#84033 10/21/02 02:11 PM
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East Coast-US:

gah-rarj...





formerly known as etaoin...
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I'd like to address this bit:

Has that pronunciation changed over the years? Does it differ from how your parents pronounced "envelope"?

Yes, and yes. When I was little I was taught "ahn-velope" and now it flip-flops. There are other words I could add to this collection - I realize now my mom retains an older form of Canadian pronunciation and my pronunciation has drifted over the years since she stopped correcting my pronunciation.

I came across an audio recording made of my family interacting in 1981 and I was fascinated with two things on that tape: (1) my pronunciation of "again" and "been" has, in many contexts, shifted to the USn version [something which I am now actively trying to change, if only to assert some small personal sovereignty over my language], and (2) my mother sounds exactly the same as she always has, both in her accent and in the fact that she spoke to us kids as if we were adults.


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My daughter and I love chuckling at my dad's pronunciations. Here are two examples:

Morning--Daddy says, "Moanin'"

Sports--He says, "Spoats"

He has the prettiest baritone speaking voice. I'll listen in more (moe) carefully and see what other ones I can pick up...


#84036 10/21/02 05:55 PM
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I'll agree with shona that both pronunciations of garage are used over here. There is some degree of class differentiation (-ahj being "posher") but that is fading in these more egalitarian times, thank goodness.

The major difference between the Brit version of Gar-ahj and the Merkan one is in where the stress lies. Britons put stress on the first syllabe, regardless of which pronunciation is adopted, whereas (so far as I know!) Americans put the stress on the second syllable.

As to "on-vel-ope" or "en-vel-up", I also admit to using either, probably fairly equally.


#84037 10/21/02 06:21 PM
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We may have discussed this before, but I forgit. How do y'all pronounce "route"? I have a feeling that rowt is uniquely Merckan, but would be glad to sit corrected.

I say root all the time except in the phrase "paper route." Then it's rowt.


#84038 10/21/02 07:41 PM
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I'm usually pretty tolerant about transpondian pronunciation differences,as you know; however, by tolerance is pushed to the utmost limit by the use of "rowt" instead of "root"




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