Editing Talk:2819: Pronunciation

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These are all heteronyms

(/ɪ/|/t/)+(/ɪ/|/juː/)+(/ɛ/|/ɨ/)+(/s/|/z/)+(/t/|/d/)+(/eɪ/|/æ/)+(/aɪ/|???) ...what's the alternate (anglophone) pronunciation for the 'y' in "gyro"? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.81|141.101.98.81]] 19:03, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
:...oh, ok, now there's an explanation on this. Not convinced by the alternate 'y' at all. And I pronounce "putting" exactly like "putting", as well. Consider me additionally confused. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.90|172.70.90.90]] 19:22, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
:gyro as in the sandwich (pronounced like Euro), or gyro as in short for gyroscope.
::Never even heard of a "gyro" sandwich. (And "Euro" can be YOU-ro, OY-ro, ERR-oh, etc, depending on which country you're(-oh) in.) Clearly something very Leftpondian, this comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.90|172.70.90.90]] 21:51, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
:::Oh man! Come on, we're going to the grocery store. You're one of today's lucky 10,000.- [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.172|172.70.131.172]] 22:43, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
:::It's a Greek dish similar to a shawarma. It's pronounced YEE-ro, I believe. (Which is kind of similar to that first pronunciation of "Euro", so that's probably what they were going for.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.43.118|172.70.43.118]] 22:04, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
::::Putting/putting - think southern England if you want to appreciate the difference. The golfing sense is somewhere between "patting" and "potting"; the placing sense more like...well, like "putting". "Pooting," I suppose, with a "book" type "oo".[[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 22:46, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
:::::It's actually gyros, or γύρος using Greek spelling, there is no singular form because it is uncountable, like news. It's not like you can have one new. It's still probably the same word but I guess the meat is more likely to be pronounced in the original Greek way while words like gyroscope, which is a device originally used to measure (scope) the rotation (gyros) of the earth, have been anglicized in their pronunciation. [[User:Tharkon|Tharkon]] ([[User talk:Tharkon|talk]]) 23:25, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
::::::So in English, is it gyros meat or gyro meat?
::::::The "original" Greek way would be /gyros/, but the word for the sandwich was borrowed from modern Greek, while the word for the device was borrowed by way of Latin and maybe French. And English has this silly habit of treating mass nouns with final /z/ or /s/ as plural count nouns, especially if the masses are made of many countable objects, like pease and cherise. Anonymous11:54, 24 August 2023 (UTC) 
::::::Where are people getting the idea from that it's uncountable in Greek? Singular is γύρος (gyros, /'jiros/), plural is γύροι (gyroi, /jiri/). [[User:Vince|Vince]] ([[User talk:Vince|talk]]) 09:24, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
:::::::I did not actually mean for the word to be uncountable in Greek specifically, though I see how my sentence could be taken that way. The word γῦρος in Ancient Greek (I don't have a lot of experience with modern Greek) also simply meant ring or circle, so clearly it was countable then. But now it refers to meat which is generally uncountable in English, maybe less so in inflected languages like Latin, Italian and Greek. I now remember that pasta is singular with a plural paste (or pastae in Latin). [[User:Tharkon|Tharkon]] ([[User talk:Tharkon|talk]]) 21:47, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
:::Cool fact about the pronunciation of Euro: Yet another pronunciation (used in Greek), is ev-RO (ευρό). They also don't refer to eurocents as "cents", but rather as λεπτά (lepta, sg. lepto). You can tell that you have a Greek cent coin because it'll say ΛΕΠΤΟ or ΛΕΠΤΑ on the back. [[User:Vince|Vince]] ([[User talk:Vince|talk]]) 09:24, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
::Also, Most Americans pronounce it /hiɹoʊ/, as in "I need a hero", a pun Arby's made ample use of when they started selling gyros. I presume this also where the name "hero" for a sub comes from, despite the fact that most gyros I'm familiar with look more like Greek tacos than subs. Anonymous11:54, 24 August 2023 (UTC)


In Finland that's not far away. By starting with T and removing æ you are almost correct. Tuesday in Finnish /Ti:stai/

Someone has GOT to find a better joke than "TOMATO BOTATO" - [[Special:Contributions/172.69.59.83|172.69.59.83]] 22:41, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
:I think maybe the {{w|Ghoti|counter-example}} of orthography might work for everyone? I linked it, for those who might still be confused. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.94|172.70.90.94]] 22:48, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
:::That's a lot better, and I feel like an idiot for not thinking of it, since I was just watching Tom Fawkes last night when he mentioned Ghoti of the Deep Beyond.-  [[Special:Contributions/172.71.255.24|172.71.255.24]] 01:52, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Does someone familiar with the IPA have a silly-looking but reasonably accurate transcription of /ɪɛstæaɪ/ they want to add to the page? [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 23:19, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Listening to the IPA reader, it sounds almost like "yesterday", which is interesting because the comic was posted on Wednesday... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.155|108.162.250.155]] 00:04, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I think for the 'e' he means the 'schwa' (ə) sound, basically an unstressed neutral vowel sound (as in the 'a' in 'about', the 'e' in 'taken', the 'i' in 'pencil', the 'o' in 'havoc', the 'u' in 'supply', the 'y' in 'sibyl', or sometimes not even written as in 'rhythm') [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|Trogdor147]] ([[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|talk]]) 01:31, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
:Wait, it's a penn-sill, not a penn-sull!   
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:13, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

My naive reading of this is:  the T in buffet is silent.  U in minute is UH, E in record is EH, S in use is Z, D in moped is T, A in bass is AH, Y in gyro is YI.   together this makes: UHEZTAYI  [[Special:Contributions/172.68.4.169|172.68.4.169]] 04:23, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

There's a more modern [//youtu.be/gtnlGH055TA semivocalic analysis of English diphthongs] that could affect how the T and Y are interpreted. The video focuses on British dialects, but anecdotally, the main principles also apply to General American, so they may be more intuitive here. Not sure if this is worth going against convention to incorporate, but I figured it'd be worth suggesting.

The relevant transcriptions would become ''buffet'' /-fej/, ''minute'' /majˈn(j)uwt/, ''use'' /juw-/, ''moped'' /mow-/, ''bass'' /bejs/, ''gyro'' /jij- dʒaj-/; and in the prose, ''pronounce'' /-aw-/, ''wound'' /wawnd wuwnd/. In the mispronunciation of ''Tuesday'', the /-æaj/ would correctly look like a sequence of two vowels instead of three.

Since E doesn't usually represent /ej/, Great Vowel Shift and all, you might analyze the T of ''buffet'' as corresponding to the /-j/ rather than being silent. That would add an extra phone at the start of the mispronunciation. Maybe that's a bit ghoti, though.

Anyway, for readers who don't know the IPA, my attempt at a pronunciation respelling would be (y)ih~ess-ta~eye. I can't think of a foolproof way to evoke unchecked /æ/ instead of /ə ɑ ej/. I tried adding silent GH, but that can also yield /ij/ as in ''shillelagh''. <span style="background:#0064de;font-size:12px;padding:4px 12px;border-radius:8px;">[[User talk:AgentMuffin|<span style="color:#f0faff;">~AgentMuffin</span>]]</span>

Is it worth adding a note about the old "ghoti" being pronounced as "fish" thing?  That was my first exposure to deliberately pathological pronunciations in English, but I'm not sure if that's common?  The joke is that you take "gh" from "enough", "o" from "women", and "ti" from "nation", to get "ghoti" = "fish".
:This joke is essentially the opposite of "ghoti". Rather than taking unusual pronunciations and creating a weird spelling from them, it takes a normal spelling and finds words where those letters have unusual pronunciations. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:54, 24 August 2023 (UTC) 
:Wait, doesn't ehvehrreewunn pronounce the "wo" in "women", the same as in "wet"? I think of it as a "wooeh" sound.   
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:13, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Also note that while bass can refer to a type of fish, it can also refer to sound/tone as compared to treble and is pronounced like 'base'. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.174.101|162.158.174.101]] 13:45, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
:Already up there in the Explanation: "/b'''eɪ'''s/ (noun: low-pitched notes and the instruments that play them)"... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.194|172.70.90.194]] 13:54, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

The "y" in Tuesday doesn't really have a sound, it just serves to make the "a" long. That doesn't correspond to either of the "gyro" pronunciations. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:54, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
:So, you pronounce "da" in words like "propaganda", "Andromeda", "Canada", "soda", "agenda" just like "day" in "Tuesday", but with a shorter "a"? :) [[User:BytEfLUSh|BytEfLUSh]] ([[User talk:BytEfLUSh|talk]]) 15:17, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
::Those are pronounced more like "dah", but clipped. It's in between the short "a" in "dad" and a schwa. But if you were to add a "y" they would sound like you were a Canadian. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:40, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

This reminds me of a joke my Dad used to tell.  "A as in Aye", "S as in Sea", etc.  [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 15:15, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Until reading this explanation, I never noticed how many people say "recorded", 'wrongly': "wreck-OR-dedd" sure seems wrong to me (even though I see ''some'' pronunciation guides that OK it). Shouldn't that be "ree-KOR-dedd"?   
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:19, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
: I most often say r'-KOR-dedd with a schwa sound on the first syllable, and occasionally say ree-KOR-dedd as you suggest. I never heard anyone say wreck-OR-dedd. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 12:52, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

For Dairy Queen, the final day the Cows grased on the range was the most important day for their milk. But for all others, it was Juice Day.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.21|162.158.86.21]] 23:42, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Not really relevant to the comic, but a fun thing others might enjoy...  I have used the nickname "MAP" (my initials) since about 1970, it occurs twice in my email address.  When spelling it out (to someone where it'll work), I give it as: "M as in mnemonic, A as in aesthetic, P as in pneumonia" and when doing it the second time in my email, I end with "P as in ... psyche!" [[User:MAP|MAP]] ([[User talk:MAP|talk]]) 17:14, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Not the unit of time. The adjective meaning "very small."
See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:en-us-minute-adjective.ogg for intended pronunciation. {{unsigned ip|162.158.155.170|22:06, 26 August 2023}}
We are recording this, we record
[[User:Janis|Janis]] ([[User talk:Janis|talk]]) 11:37, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
:What new points do the above two comments seek to add? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.46|172.71.178.46]] 14:57, 30 August 2023 (UTC)