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Questions tagged [pronunciation-vs-spelling]

Questions about putative differences between spelling and pronunciation.

23 votes
5 answers
4k views

Is the ‘t’ in ‘witch’ considered a silent t?

I was under the impression that because ‘witch’ ends with a /tʃ/ sound, the ‘t’ is not silent but directly represents an essential element of the pronunciation. However, a word game (the New York ...
76987's user avatar
  • 355
0 votes
0 answers
77 views

Why are the words "mobile" and "profile" pronounced differently in American English? [closed]

Why is it like that even though both of them end in the same letters?
Niklas's user avatar
  • 67
1 vote
0 answers
34 views

Pronunciation of a made up word [closed]

If the word "movist" was real, how would you pronounce it? "moo-vist" or "moe-vist" (as in "rover"/"clover"). Thanks.
user avatar
5 votes
3 answers
354 views

Why isn't the vowel in the words "warm" and "war" (in American English) pronounced like the one in the word "talk" (American English)?

Right. What is the actual reason?
Niklas's user avatar
  • 67
1 vote
0 answers
53 views

What's the best way in writing to emphasize the pronunciation "wise-er" for the word "wiser"?

Suppose I want to write the sentence "He may not be wise, but he is surely wise-er than he used to be" with the spelling "wise-er" meant to indicate that the word "wiser" ...
Daniel Asimov's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
89 views

What could expender mean in the following context? [closed]

I recently encountered the following text in a web page specification sheet: Most tables have expenders in each line and There should be new tree named Item that is expended above type of Items ...
dbatno's user avatar
  • 13
0 votes
1 answer
132 views

Was "tea" ever pronounced as "teh-ah"?

Follow up on SciFi.SE Pronunciation of teatime: in my answer I argue that "teh-ah" as spelled out once in a discworld novel is a pronunciation-spelling. It is essentially not clear why tea /...
vectory's user avatar
  • 816
-1 votes
1 answer
74 views

Pronunciation difference b/w Python and Pyramid

Why is "Python" pronounced differently than "Pyramid"? Is there a logic behind why the "PY" is pronounced differently in both?
user492591's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
109 views

Do spell and pronounce mean the same? [closed]

I am seeing many reels on Instagram where they ask a person "Can you spell Y, E, S". The person says "Yes". Then they ask him "Can you spell E, Y, E, S". The person says &...
SupaCoda's user avatar
21 votes
5 answers
4k views

When someone spells out letters in dialogue, should they be capitalized? "P-L-E-A-S-E" vs. "p-l-e-a-s-e"

I'm not finding the answer to this on the internet after searching. When writing dialogue, do you use capital letters to spell out words? Jamie said, "I said P-L-E-A-S-E please, and don't you ...
Bettey's user avatar
  • 211
0 votes
1 answer
134 views

What is a word describing when someone pronounces a word according to how it's spelled, ignoring silent letters? [duplicate]

Phonetic spelling is when one spells a word according to how it is pronounced (e.g.; knight => nite). What word would be used to describe the pronunciation of a word based on how it is spelled, ...
QuickQuestion's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
184 views

Was the o in "go" and oe in "toe" pronounced differently in early 19th century Gloucestershire English?

No modern dialect makes the <o> and <oe> distinction, but when reading Medhurst's Hokkien dictionary of 1832 i came across (page 34) Furthermore, <o> seems to be a monophthong and &...
iamanigeeit's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
28 views

Why do we say some initialisms and acronyms as words but not others? [duplicate]

Initialisms and acronyms with vowels can be said as single words. Is there any coherent pattern or convention determining the choice? VIP? LOL? DIY? WAG? For example?
Daniel Watts's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
182 views

Why did English take the "mix pronunciations and spellings" route instead of one rule route like French, or separate languages/dialects like Spanish? [closed]

Like the multiple pronunciations of "ough" or different spellings for the same sounds in English I've read come from mixing different dialects into one language. Whereas with French, they ...
user avatar
18 votes
3 answers
4k views

In 18th century England, was "eat" the past tense of "eat" and how was it pronounced?

In Boswell's London Journal (1762-3), the author expresses the past tense of the verb eat with the same spelling: I sat in till between four and five. I then went to Holborn, to a cheesemonger's, and ...
Robusto's user avatar
  • 152k

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