Do YOU pronounce Sigil with a hard or soft G?

[Anonymouswizard]

Together with all the "Leicester is pronounced Lester" type places this makes me think British names get frail with age so some parts of them just fall of. It's the only logical conclusion.

That's... not far from the truth. Combined with changing fashions and accents, and occasional chanting pronunciation or spelling from one language to another.

It's the same reason that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland becomes the United Kingdom, or UK, and in a few hundred years might actually corrupt to be pronounced 'ook'*.

* I'm trying my hardest at least.

[Willie the Duck]

I love the English aristocracy, sometimes. I collect these names.

This could be read as you having had a string of interesting previous marriages.

[Batcathat]

This could be read as you having had a string of interesting previous marriages.

That would be a very... dedicated way of collecting something.

"Be honest... did you marry me for my money?"
"No, no. I married you for your cool surname."

[Eldan]

To be fair, I would also love a cooler coat of arms than mine.

[Willie the Duck]

That would be a very... dedicated way of collecting something.

In this scenario, the collecting would be accidental.
Read it this way: I love the English aristocracy... sometimes. I collect these names.

[ezekielraiden]

What invariably throws me is I think the "jam" is a far harder sound then "grab".

IIRC, "hard g" is considered "hard" because it is the voiced equivalent of "k," which is considered among the hardest consonants. "Soft g" is considered soft, by comparison, because it is the voiced version of "ch" as in "cheese" or "chalk," which doesn't articulate as hard as "k" does.

...Is there a soft way to pronounce vacuum?

It is an actual, straight-up Latin word still used in languages today; it has no "soft" pronunciation, but if we're holding things to their original Latin root, it should be pronounced "wak-oo-um," not "vak-yoom."

I am not an English native speaker. I pronounce all four of those words differently depending on the language used. Even if Caesar is a name and shouldn't really change but i don't know anyone using the classical pronounciation in daily conversation.

My point was mostly that your reasoning is rather ad-hoc and arbitrary; you adhere to the Latin origin in certain cases, and the modern contextual usage in other cases (such as pronouncing Caesar as "seizer"). If, as you noted, it's simply a matter of unfamiliarity--fine. But it came across as an applied principle, rather than a rule-of-thumb for words not previously seen in context.

English likes to insert some i-sound between the c and the first u to make the transition easier.

Yeah, I'm sure there's some term for it, though I have no idea what it would be.

[LibraryOgre]

Together with all the "Leicester is pronounced Lester" type places this makes me think British names get frail with age so some parts of them just fall of. It's the only logical conclusion.

They were jealous of the French having letters pronounced wrong, and decided to have syllables that weren't said.

[quinron]

Yeah, I'm sure there's some term for it, though I have no idea what it would be.

Voiced palatal glide/approximate.

I studied opera for 7 years, and the only skill I'm still using regularly is diction terminology.

[ImNotTrevor]

I missed this, and I gotta do it to 'em.

Nope. Neither is "crown" (and yes, some people say it like that).

It's "KREI-aan".

Webster's Dictionary is very specific about that.

ARE YOU SUUUUURE?

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Because Merriam Webster ACTUALLY accounts for these two, plus one additional pronunciation.

Sorry, my guy, but Dictionaries are linguistically *descriptive* documents. They don't dictate what it correct. They explain how words are currently used. That is why dictionaries are updated yearly.

Other pronunciations are due to regional dialect differences. Variations of a correct way to pronounce a word.

Again, this isn't how it works, linguistically.
Any "correct" way to pronounce a word must be chosen arbitrarily from a vast range of English Dialects, with one of them declared King Dialect with no objective reasoning behind it.
This doesn't cause Linguistic Etiquette to stop existing, it just doesn't grok with linguistics.

Saying "both are correct" or "there's no correct way to pronounce a word" is like saying "there's no such thing as an accent". Hell, I'm from Michigan, and like most Michiganders, when I say the word "both", it comes out sounding kind of like there's an "L" in it ("bolth"). Does that mean it's "correct" to put an invisible L in the word? No. It's a regional dialect. And it's just how it sounds. Michiganders tend to use a lot of nasal cavity resonating in our pronunciation. Has something to do with the humidity of the region.

Accents can affect the voicings of things, and are tied to dialects.
Accounting for multiple common pronunciations of a word and having them all be acceptable is literally the exact OPPOSITE of accent erasure.

It ensures that you can't label an entire accent as "wrong English." Which is an absurd proposition.

Also wrong. One does not drive a "kyoop" De Ville. One does not overthrow a ruler in a "kyoop" (or "kyoo") d'etat. A "Blow of Mercy" is not a "kyoop" or "kyoo" de grace*. It's pronounced "Koo-pon".

ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?

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Twice now Merriam Webster disagrees with you.

I am a former English Teacher, so I can't help but be bombastic about this. I apologize if I'm being a tad... Extra.

*On that note, the last word of that is not pronounced "grah". "Coup De Grace" is not pronounced "koo de grah". THAT would be spelled "Coup De Gras", and would mean "Blow Of Fat". "Coup De Grace" means "Blow Of Mercy" and is pronounced "koo de grahs".

This one seems mostly correct, but Webster's still notes variationa.

This one caused debate, because it is an acronym. I still maintain that pronouncing the letter that stands for a "hard G" word with a "soft G" is...bizarre, if not blatantly stupid, but I can't find any fault with saying "G-I-F" letter by letter.

Websters accepts both hard and soft g, last I checked.

But the "underlying word" argument is a bit silly. If that was the rule, "Scuba" would be pronounced "SCUH-ba" with the "a" sounding like the one in "Apple"

Which, while somewhat fun to say, would be ridiculous to employ in daily speech.


OK I'M DONE NOW
I'm sorry for being extra.

[RedMage125]

Together with all the "Leicester is pronounced Lester" type places this makes me think British names get frail with age so some parts of them just fall of. It's the only logical conclusion.

That's... not far from the truth. Combined with changing fashions and accents, and occasional chanting pronunciation or spelling from one language to another.

It's the same reason that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland becomes the United Kingdom, or UK, and in a few hundred years might actually corrupt to be pronounced 'ook'*.

* I'm trying my hardest at least.

That's because those names are holdovers from the original peoples of the British Isles. You want some of the best evidence for this in people's names? Look at some Irish names sometimes*. There's even a really funny YouTube video "when you order coffee with an Irish name"

*For example, one of the names my wife and I are considering if/when we have a girl is "Aoife". Which is pronounced "EEE-fa".

That would be a very... dedicated way of collecting something.

"Be honest... did you marry me for my money?"
"No, no. I married you for your cool surname."

I knew a teacher that did this. Or at least it seemed like it. Her maiden name was "Urt" or something.

Married a Greek guy. Seven-syllable last name. It's been awhile, but I wanna say it was pronounced "pop-in-ah-sta-stohp-a-los"

I missed this, and I gotta do it to 'em.


ARE YOU SUUUUURE?

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Show

Because Merriam Webster ACTUALLY accounts for these two, plus one additional pronunciation.

Sorry, my guy, but Dictionaries are linguistically *descriptive* documents. They don't dictate what it correct. They explain how words are currently used. That is why dictionaries are updated yearly.


Again, this isn't how it works, linguistically.
Any "correct" way to pronounce a word must be chosen arbitrarily from a vast range of English Dialects, with one of them declared King Dialect with no objective reasoning behind it.
This doesn't cause Linguistic Etiquette to stop existing, it just doesn't grok with linguistics.


Accents can affect the voicings of things, and are tied to dialects.
Accounting for multiple common pronunciations of a word and having them all be acceptable is literally the exact OPPOSITE of accent erasure.

It ensures that you can't label an entire accent as "wrong English." Which is an absurd proposition.



ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?

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Show

Twice now Merriam Webster disagrees with you.

I am a former English Teacher, so I can't help but be bombastic about this. I apologize if I'm being a tad... Extra.

I don't know how you pulled something from supposedly the same source. I pulled up Webster's Dictionary and got only ONE pronunciation for both of those words. SO I don't know what to tell you.

Literally, only ONE pronunciation for both words.

This one seems mostly correct, but Webster's still notes variationa.

That's actually literally just French. "Coup De Grace" is not an English phrase, it's straight-up French. And there's one way to pronounce it. Pronouncing "koo de grah" in French would be spelled "Coup De Gras" and would mean "Blow of Fat". Same word found in Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday).

For example, take a Spanish word with the double-r. Burro. A lot of Americans have trouble rolling their "R"s. Does it mean saying "burro" without the "rolling r" is correct? No the F- it isn't.

Websters accepts both hard and soft g, last I checked.

But the "underlying word" argument is a bit silly. If that was the rule, "Scuba" would be pronounced "SCUH-ba" with the "a" sounding like the one in "Apple"

Which, while somewhat fun to say, would be ridiculous to employ in daily speech.

You don't? The "A" is a short "A" sound. "Apparatus" (as in Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) is the same "a" sound at the end of "SCUBA". It sounds slightly different because the transition to the "double p" that follows requires a slight increase in inflection, as opposed to ending a word with it. But they're both a short "a".

Also, I not that you didn't respond to this, in regards to your claims about fantasy words. You said:
"Again, linguistically speaking, the idea that a made-up fantasy word has a."correct pronunciation" is as hilarious as it is incorrect.

Language doesn't care how the creator wanted it pronounced. That's not how it works."

TO which I said: "Actually, that's exactly how that works. Especially if you are referring to it within the same wheelhouse as the creator intended it for.

If I was talking about Harry Potter lore with Harry Potter fans, and referred to Voldemort's Horcrux, pronouncing "hor-KRUZH", I would actually be objectively wrong."

[Imbalance]

I don't know how you pulled something from supposedly the same source. I pulled up Webster's Dictionary and got only ONE pronunciation for both of those words. SO I don't know what to tell you.

Literally, only ONE pronunciation for both words.

Multiple pronunciation results are shown when I pull it up, though comparing different online dictionaries has often shown differences in certain details. More to ImNotTrevor's point, though, is that regionally based Internet searches yield regionally based results, and I suspect that Webster adjusts their results based on where you are and your most common regional pronunciation.

I've never heard scuba pronounced with a-as-in-apple at the end, nor have I ever heard apparatus pronounced without a-as-in-apple at the beginning. I have with my own ears heard at least three ways to say coupon and even more for crayon, and in no case did I not understand the speaker.

[InvisibleBison]

TO which I said: "Actually, that's exactly how that works. Especially if you are referring to it within the same wheelhouse as the creator intended it for.

If I was talking about Harry Potter lore with Harry Potter fans, and referred to Voldemort's Horcrux, pronouncing "hor-KRUZH", I would actually be objectively wrong."

The difference between language and Harry Potter is that the latter has a creator who is in a position of authority over the subject*, while the former does not. You can't be "objectively wrong" in how you pronounce words, because there's no one who is able to set an "objectively right" pronunciation. The same for spelling, or usage, or creating new words, or any other issue.


*At least, according to some. Death of the Author says otherwise.

[Edreyn]

I pronounce the G letter as in the word "ghost".

see-GHIL

[Tanarii]

You don't? The "A" is a short "A" sound. "Apparatus" (as in Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) is the same "a" sound at the end of "SCUBA". It sounds slightly different because the transition to the "double p" that follows requires a slight increase in inflection, as opposed to ending a word with it. But they're both a short "a".

yeah, scuba is absolutely pronounced Skoo-bah as a standard. With the "bah" the same as apple and apparatus.

Maybe the question should instead be: does everyone pronounce apple as ah-pull? Or ah-pah-rah-tus?

Edit: I realized "ah" can either be ah as in apple, or ah as in ah-nold schwarzenegger. And when I look up apple on wiktionary, the "US" pronunciation is far harder than I'm used to hearing or saying it. More like the UK one. Ditto for apparatus, the a is far to hard.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apple
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apparatus

Either way it's not "a" in scuba, apple or apparatus, which is ay instead of ah.

[RedMage125]

Multiple pronunciation results are shown when I pull it up, though comparing different online dictionaries has often shown differences in certain details. More to ImNotTrevor's point, though, is that regionally based Internet searches yield regionally based results, and I suspect that Webster adjusts their results based on where you are and your most common regional pronunciation.

That's interesting. I'm on an aircraft carrier right now. I wonder if where the boat is getting signal from has affected which results I get.

I've never heard scuba pronounced with a-as-in-apple at the end, nor have I ever heard apparatus pronounced without a-as-in-apple at the beginning. I have with my own ears heard at least three ways to say coupon and even more for crayon, and in no case did I not understand the speaker.

So...do you not pronounce it "Skoo-bah"? How do you pronounce SCUBA?

The difference between language and Harry Potter is that the latter has a creator who is in a position of authority over the subject*, while the former does not. You can't be "objectively wrong" in how you pronounce words, because there's no one who is able to set an "objectively right" pronunciation. The same for spelling, or usage, or creating new words, or any other issue.

I quite agree. That was my point.

Perhaps you missed what I was responding to. I'mNotTrevor said, ver batim:

Again, linguistically speaking, the idea that a made-up fantasy word has a."correct pronunciation" is as hilarious as it is incorrect.

Language doesn't care how the creator wanted it pronounced. That's not how it works.

yeah, scuba is absolutely pronounced Skoo-bah as a standard. With the "bah" the same as apple and apparatus.

Maybe the question should instead be: does everyone pronounce apple as ah-pull? Or ah-pah-rah-tus?

Vindication!

[Marcelinari]

I am firmly of the opinion that since language is primarily a tool for communication, pronunciation is correct if it is understood as the same thing by both the speaker and the listener.

That said, on the SCUBA question, it seems to me that A is always pronounced in the way that the underlying word intends, so it is an odd choice of example - especially when the U stands for Underwater, and therefore the word should be pronounced ‘scubba’ if we were taking each letter as representative of its underlying word.

I pronounce gif with a ‘Guh’.

[VincentTakeda]

soft g for me. even if the hard g is canon I couldnt convince myself to change it. Any time I hear it with the hard G I find it jarring and uncomfortable

[Imbalance]

SKOO-bə is quite probably the only pronunciation I have ever heard, and leastways the only way I remember having heard it in person and in media, and the only way I've ever uttered it, even after having learned it was an acronym. I may have tested saying SKUBB-ah out loud in the wake of new knowledge and promptly abandoned it in favor of the norm on the reasoning that for all the more I'll ever be inclined to use the term it should be in the way most likely to be understood. A hillbilly don't s'much go divin'.

[Tanarii]

That said, on the SCUBA question, it seems to me that A is always pronounced in the way that the underlying word intends, so it is an odd choice of example - especially when the U stands for Underwater, and therefore the word should be pronounced ‘scubba’ if we were taking each letter as representative of its underlying word.

Good call there. In skoo-bah, the bah is like ah-pah-rah-tus, but the oo is definitely not like un-der-wah-ter.

SKOO-bə is quite probably the only pronunciation I have ever heard, and leastways the only way I remember having heard it in person and in media, and the only way I've ever uttered it, even after having learned it was an acronym.

Where (roughly) are you from? Because it's not that way in the western USA. Nor for that matter on anything I can find when I google "SCUBA pronunciation". Even the top hit, which is written skoo-buh, is actually pronounced skoo-bah when you listen to it.

I'd love to get a link where I can hear it the way you normally expect it to be said. I'm really curious now.

[Imbalance]

Where (roughly) are you from? Because it's not that way in the western USA. Nor for that matter on anything I can find when I google "SCUBA pronunciation". Even the top hit, which is written skoo-buh, is actually pronounced skoo-bah when you listen to it.

The lumpy part of PA. First result for me is:

scu·ba
/ˈsko͞obə/

Clicking the button, the voice says it just the way I know it. That schwa is just like in 'the' (not long e). This is exactly how I remember hearing it on Riptide, G.I. Joe, and Magnum, P.I. in my most formative years. Emphasizing 'buh' at the end sounds like a touch of hyper extended speech.

Edit to add: there is a 'learn to pronounce' button that takes me to a page with skoo•buh, and the audio definitely accentuates the buh more. There is also a pull down to select between American and British pronunciation. Both of these begin differently and end the same.

Edit #2: Webster has \ ˈskü-bə \ and that man sounds correct to me.

[Tanarii]

Edit #2: Webster has \ ˈskü-bə \ and that man sounds correct to me.

Yes https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scuba
Clearly "skoo-bah", with the same ah as in ah-pull or ah-puh-rah-tus.

[TridentOfMirth]

I pronounce the G like a j (Sijil) but I have heard lots of people use the hard g sound.

[Imbalance]

Yes https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scuba
Clearly "skoo-bah", with the same ah as in ah-pull or ah-puh-rah-tus.

Nope. That's the exact same page, but nowhere is "skoo-bah" written, nor does the man's voice sound like the short a in apple. I'm debating if it's worth the effort to takes screen caps, because I can't grab a direct link to the four different audio files.

Edit: see if this redirects you to what I see:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dict...&file=scuba001

[Wizard_Lizard]

That's... not far from the truth. Combined with changing fashions and accents, and occasional chanting pronunciation or spelling from one language to another.

It's the same reason that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland becomes the United Kingdom, or UK, and in a few hundred years might actually corrupt to be pronounced 'ook'*.

* I'm trying my hardest at least.

Truly the Librarian was telling us this all along.

[Tanarii]

Nope. That's the exact same page, but nowhere is "skoo-bah" written, nor does the man's voice sound like the short a in apple. I'm debating if it's worth the effort to takes screen caps, because I can't grab a direct link to the four different audio files.

Edit: see if this redirects you to what I see:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dict...&file=scuba001

Yes. Your link also has the same a sound as in apple, apparatus, and "skoo-bah"

[Xuc Xac]

Yes. Your link also has the same a sound as in apple, apparatus, and "skoo-bah"

It absolutely does not. That dictionary describes "scuba" as /ˈskü-bə/ and "apple" as /ˈa-pəl/. If they had the same sound, they wouldn't have different pronunciation symbols: /ə/ and /a/ are not the same sound. Unless you think "apple" rhymes with "couple", the "a" in "apple" is not the same as the one in "scuba".

[Tanarii]

It absolutely does not. That dictionary describes "scuba" as /ˈskü-bə/ and "apple" as /ˈa-pəl/. If they had the same sound, they wouldn't have different pronunciation symbols: /ə/ and /a/ are not the same sound. Unless you think "apple" rhymes with "couple", the "a" in "apple" is not the same as the one in "scuba".

I don't care about supposed symbols. I know what I'm hearing, and it sounds the same. You can test it yourself.

Say scuba with the "bə" as pronounced in the link. Then say scubapple. Then say scubapperatus. They all sound the same.

Also I highly recommend trying this when friends or family are in the same room so they wonder what the heck you are reading

[Xuc Xac]

I don't care about supposed symbols. I know what I'm hearing, and it sounds the same. You can test it yourself.

You're hearing incorrectly. The sounds are clearly different. The dictionary people can hear the difference and wrote the pronunciation with different symbols to indicate that. I can hear the difference too. These are two different sounds.

You can argue about how those words should be pronounced because that's a matter of opinion. If you want to claim those recordings are making the same sound, that's factually wrong. The "a" in the recorded example of "scuba" is /ə/; the one in "apple" is /æ/. Different dialects may say those words differently, but that doesn't change the fact that the recordings you're referring to as "the same" are actually using these two different sounds. You can listen to the sounds of each Vowel symbol of the IPA on the Wikipedia page for "Vowel". Check if they all the sound the same to you.

[Tanarii]

You can listen to the sounds of each Vowel symbol of the IPA on the Wikipedia page for "Vowel". Check if they all the sound the same to you.

I listened to the /ə/ on iPA (on Wikipedia) and it's not the sound in the linked dictionary scuba. I also listened to IPA /a/ and it's not the sound in any example of apple or apparatus I've listened to today, not even the ones I linked that I disagreed with earlier.

Those are dramatically different sounds, but they don't seem to match actual examples being given by any of us.

What's interesting is before I listened to them, I was prepared to accept I might not just be able to hear a very minor difference, since examples given thus far mostly sounded the same to me. But now I've listened to the "correct" way to say those symbols, it's clear to me they're just not being correctly used, since they don't match the sound recordings.

[Xuc Xac]

I listened to the /ə/ on iPA (on Wikipedia) and it's not the sound in the linked dictionary scuba.

Yes, it is.

I also listened to IPA /a/ and it's not the sound in any example of apple or apparatus I've listened to today, not even the ones I linked that I disagreed with earlier.

The sound in apple and apparatus isn't /a/, it's /æ/. If you can't hear the difference, the problem is you and not the professional linguists and speech mechanics experts.

What's interesting is before I listened to them, I was prepared to accept I might not just be able to hear a very minor difference, since examples given thus far mostly sounded the same to me. But now I've listened to the "correct" way to say those symbols, it's clear to me they're just not being correctly used, since they don't match the sound recordings.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary doesn't use the IPA symbols, so don't get that mixed up. Maybe the problem is that you're hearing the sounds and thinking "it sounds like an A", but the letter A represents a lot of sounds. Each IPA symbol only has one sound, which is why they're used to describe sounds. For example, the E in "pen" can vary between dialects, but there's only one way to pronounce /e/ in IPA.