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Had no idea 'Sapiens' was pronounced differently between US and UK English. What are some of your pronunciation surprises?
- Thread starter Kyuuji
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It's pronounced that way because it's an Ancient Greek word. It would have originally been pronounced more like 'nee-kay', but for some reason the way Greek vowels were pronounced in English changed in the 14th century.
I studied Mathematics at University. The department was called "Maths and Stats".
Would you call it "Math and Stat"?
I think you asked a question about specific usage. A department name probably wouldn't use the shortened form.
There's this thing called "conversational English".
Let's make it simpler: what's the contraction of "Statistics" in American English?
But while we're here can we do the soccer thing? The word soccer was in fairly common use in Britain in the sixties where it was used to distinguish Association Football from the two forms of Rugby football. At some point in the late seventies, though, the professionalised form of Association Football achieved a cultural dominance and now a whole generation has grown up apparently believing that the word "soccer" is a crude American import. Getting old is weird, you get to see cultural change happen in real time.
How else would you pronounce it? The Latin American and Castilian pronunciations aren't that far from tack-o. The American "tahco" pronunciation isn't a great approximation of either.
???
I agreed that the Ameircan way to pronounce Nike is correct. I was just explaining the British logic with the way they pronounce it.
I mean I speak Spanish and, maybe it's just the people I've heard, but none of the British people I've heard pronouncing taco sounds anything like the Spanish pronunciation.
Or maybe my ears are just busted or something IDK.
I have to admit I've heard some right royal butchering of Spanish by English speakers. As a northern Englishman I've always been something of a foreigner in my own country (our vowel pronunciation is distinctly alien sounding to those from the south). If northerners sometimes mess up in Spanish pronunciation, it's because we'll elongate the trailing o or even turn it into a diphthong.
The same reason why brits drop the sounds of letters in half of the words they speak, probably
Tha'll get a clip rahnd lug'oil if tha' carries on like this
Depending on where you're from in the North, this can lead to some amusing situations. My father in law has a pretty broad Manchester / Oldham accent, and he drops H's all over the shop. 'appy, 'eart, 'ouse. You get the idea. I pronounce all of those with very clear H's, even though I grew up maybe 40 minutes drive from him.
It's kind of funny watching him try to say a sentence like: "I need to book a hotel," though. Hotel starts with a consonant sound for me, so I just say it the way I've just written it there. He, on the other hand, says "I need to book uh 'otel" with a really forced stop between the two vowel sounds.
This is the reason that French (and probably other romance languages) tell you to pronounce the "T" at the end of words where you wouldn't normally, when they're followed by a word that starts with a vowel sound. The most obvious example being the brand name Moët et Chandon, which you'd say "Moh-ayy" if you were just reading the first word of, but "Moh-ett" if you were reading the full thing. It avoids a very unnatural stop.
EDIT - Apparently the Moët et Chandon thing is actually because the guy was Dutch, according to the link above. But the principle still stands.
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I hear this occasionally in Canada too and I think it's more that people just don't know the phrase. Like the thread yesterday about ears burning.
My pet grouse is the quite nonsensical "the proof is in the pudding." The phrase as I learned it is "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." I don't think the latter needs any explanation.
Gordon Ramsay is the first voice to pop into my head when I think of this pronunciation.
Yeah, word endings tend to get swallowed in British English. And few concessions are made to latin consonants. It's basically a familiar word pronounced in the English way (past) with a schwa afterwards to denote the -a.
We'll pronounce the "h" in herbs when you guys start pronouncing the "r"s at the ends of words. :P
It's always "eh" or "ah". Tickles me to death.
I always found the UK style of making corporations and other singular proper nouns plural bizarre. e.g. "Apple are making a new phone" or "Manchester United are playing". They are singular entities; sure, they're comprised of multiple people, but it's not like you say "the city are hosting a festival".
JAG-yew-eh (Jaguar, controversial, I know), bah (bar), bee-eh (beer), or anything that ends in r. The r specifically is a hard (hahd) thing for Brits to enunciate. It's part of the accent, which is a good thing to me. It'd suck if we all sounded the same. Still tickles me, though.
Ma'am sounding like Mom/mum.
I watched some british shoes and was confused why they kept calling multiple women mum
I watched some british shoes and was confused why they kept calling multiple women mum
This has to be a regional thing, because I pronounce it as rover. Range Rover.
the first time i met an Aussie i did a double take when he said Al oo mini Um. i was like wut
UK here
Never once heard anyone say sap-iens, it's always been sape-iens
For sure, much like here. Dialect, region, culture, upbringing. Language is a beautiful thing.
They can have their pronunciation of Nike. Their attempt at Adidas is a disgrace, though!
Ma'am ("marrrm") sounds different to mum, but close-ish to some American accent's "mom".
It's also a word that only ever gets used in institutions like the police. I have literally never said it.
As a big time football (soccer) fan who has watched the Premier League for more than a decade now, I've noticed that most of the English pundits/commentators butcher most foreign surnames. And it seems like they almost go out of their way to not make the effort to pronounce names as they would be in their native tongue.
Spanish names in particular.
Spanish names in particular.