Word Pronunciation

[Jambalaya]

How do you say "chalcedony"? I've heard it so many different ways I think no one knows! Another gem-related one: Is it tanzaNIGHT or tanzaNEET?

And what about "innovative"? Inn-OH-vative? Or INN-ovative?

And I once heard someone say "short-lyved" instead of "short-lihved." What do you think about this one?

And DE-tails or de-TAILS?

You know, there are quite a few words I mispronounce. Sad but true.

 

[aviastar]

Cal-said-nee
Tanza-night

Details and innovative are both technically correct, I think.

How about peony? Pee-O-nee or pee-uh-nee? I say the second unless I am being particularly silly on purpose.

 

[AGBF]

My husband e-mailed me this about a month ago. I loved it, so I will share!

AGBF


English pronunciation test
While most of you non-native speakers of English speak English quite well, there is always room for improvement (of course, the same could be said for every person for any subject, but that is another matter). To that end, I'd like to offer you a poem. Once you've learned to correctly pronounce every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

If you find it tough going, do not despair, you are not alone: Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.

English is tough stuff
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

(Apparently excerpted from The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité.)

 

[zoebartlett]

How do you say "chalcedony"? I've heard it so many different ways I think no one knows! Another gem-related one: Is it tanzaNIGHT or tanzaNEET?

And what about "innovative"? Inn-OH-vative? Or INN-ovative?

And I once heard someone say "short-lyved" instead of "short-lihved." What do you think about this one?

And DE-tails or de-TAILS?

You know, there are quite a few words I mispronounce. Sad but true.

I've never heard the word "chalcedony" before. I'm probably butchering it, but I'd pronounce it phonetically: ch-al-seh-donny.
Tanzanite is tanza-NIGHT.
Innovative is INN-ovative.
I've never heard of pronouncing "lived" (for your example of short lived) any way other than with a short i like "it."
Details is "DEE-tails." I've heard it both ways though.
Peony is "pee-uh-nee."

That's great, Deb! English is such a hard language.

 

[Jambalaya]

God, that was a long poem! But very interesting, Deb! Great for learners of English.

OK, I had heard chalcedony pronounced "cal-sed-nee" and thought it was wrong but I guess not. I would have said it as written, chahl-kehd-onee. It seems so weird that the "O" isn't pronounced.

I say pee-uh-nee too.

How many people have heard "inn-OH-vative instead of INN-ovative? I heard this for the first time the other day and it really surprised me.

Zoe, the "short-lyved" thing was a huge surprise. Only heard it once, from someone born and brought up in the US, a WASPY type, and a professor at a well-known college - so a native speaker. Maybe it was dialect from his part of the country, who knows.

I also knew someone whose last name was Baudean, which I thought was "Bowdeen." But she pronounced it Bee-oh-dee-onne. I mean, it's her name so she knows best, but she managed to get four syllables out of what seemed to be two! Mind, I guess it's different with names, where you can get creative, as opposed to generic language.

 

[distracts]

AGBF - That poem reminds me of the wonderful early Dr. Seuss work "The Tough Coughs as He Ploughs the Dough," in which an immigrant explains to his boss that he "pluffed the duff" and the boss takes offense, thinking, that, uh, "pluff the duff" is a euphemism for something the immigrant did to the boss's wife.

 

[azstonie]

Its cal-SID-knee

I shop for it every year at at Tucson. Purple and blue are my faves.

 

[mochiko42]

Here's a list with American pronunciation. http://www.bwsmigel.info/Pronunciation.guide.html
Personally, as I'm not from the US I would pronounce some of those words differently depending on the etymology (eg I would use the word "cabochon" as if it were French, and I would pronounce "akoya" as its actually the romanisation of Japanese hiragana).

 

[chrono]

My pronounciation is different than those in the US due to my British styled education. For gem related words, I follow the native pronounciation as closely as possible.

 

[missy]

My husband e-mailed me this about a month ago. I loved it, so I will share!

AGBF


English pronunciation test
While most of you non-native speakers of English speak English quite well, there is always room for improvement (of course, the same could be said for every person for any subject, but that is another matter). To that end, I'd like to offer you a poem. Once you've learned to correctly pronounce every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

If you find it tough going, do not despair, you are not alone: Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.

English is tough stuff
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, a$$, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

(Apparently excerpted from The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité.)

LOL thanks for sharing this Deb! I love it too. And English sure is "tough stuff".
Especially with a Brooklyn accent haha.

 

[arkieb1]

Or an Aussie accent

 

[Jambalaya]

Here's a list with American pronunciation. http://www.bwsmigel.info/Pronunciation.guide.html
Personally, as I'm not from the US I would pronounce some of those words differently depending on the etymology (eg I would use the word "cabochon" as if it were French, and I would pronounce "akoya" as its actually the romanisation of Japanese hiragana).

Mochiko, so how would you pronounce "akoya"? I say ah-koy-ah. So pretty much as it's written. What does the Japanese pronunciation sound like?

 

[Jambalaya]

My pronounciation is different than those in the US due to my British styled education. For gem related words, I follow the native pronounciation as closely as possible.

That sounds like an interesting/unusual education, Chrono! When you say British-styled, do you mean in the UK, or an international school here in the US, or in another country which used be part of the British empire and perhaps still has British-style schools? (No idea if that's a thing - am guessing.) Just curious!

 

[missy]

Or an Aussie accent

Arkieb, I love an Aussie accent. Sounds much more elegant than a Brooklyn accent.
Ha, I was in a store in NJ the other day and the salesperson said he was trying to figure out where I was from LOL. I think he thought I was from another country. OMG my Brooklyn accent must really be unique hehe.

 

[chrono]

Jambalaya,
I am not a US citizen by birth so my education is different than those in the US. That is all I am comfortable posting publicly. If there is a PM function, some other private means of communication or we are face to face, I don't mind sharing more details.

 

[Jambalaya]

Yes, I understand, Chrono. I don't like giving away my location either, for security reasons.