Pronunciation Pronouncements

[WhitetailAni]

29 minutes ago, RomantheFabulous said:

So it seems only the British pronounce it correctly then.

I know it as "ah-sill-a-scope" because the first bit gets mashed together for me. It's more "asill-a-scope".

 

Gaussian I'd say "GOW-see-in".

[Issac Zachary]

As a native English speaker learning Spanish, I once told a friend I wanted to learn more words in Spanish, like how to say the "Paɪ.thǝˌgɔːri.ən theorem." He told me he was pretty sure it was pronounced "Pɪˌθæg.əˈriː.ən theorem". I said, "Maybe I should learn how to say it in English first."

 

English is a pain. What's the difference between "I used to clean sinks" and "I used two clean sinks?" The "to" changes to "two" yet we change the pronunciation in "used" by pronouncing or not the "d."

[smcoakley]

7 hours ago, Issac Zachary said:

English is a pain. What's the difference between "I used to clean sinks" and "I used two clean sinks?" The "to" changes to "two" yet we change the pronunciation in "used" by pronouncing or not the "d."

Heh, you got that right, modern English is very loose.

 

The phrase you presented is interesting. Upon reflection, I say each differently by pronouncing "used to" like "yoost too", and "used two" like "yoozd too" in the latter case. At least two members of my family would probably say "yoose-tuh" in the first case.

[Kanzaki Makoto]

On 1/10/2024 at 10:51 AM, smcoakley said:

Heh, you got that right, modern English is very loose.

 

The phrase you presented is interesting. Upon reflection, I say each differently by pronouncing "used to" like "yoost too", and "used two" like "yoozd too" in the latter case. At least two members of my family would probably say "yoose-tuh" in the first case.

Now that you mention it, I can't help but check if that's what I do too. Although there's nothing stopping you from saying "I used two clean sinks" since people will just automatically correct that in their heads. English is weird though at times yeah

[Thomas A. Fine]

On 1/9/2024 at 2:03 PM, RomantheFabulous said:

So it seems only the British pronounce it correctly then.

The British ceded all claim as maintainers of the English language when they started adding an extra syllable to "aluminum". 

[Godlygamer23]

15 hours ago, Kanzaki Makoto said:

Now that you mention it, I can't help but check if that's what I do too. Although there's nothing stopping you from saying "I used two clean sinks" since people will just automatically correct that in their heads. English is weird though at times yeah

"They're over there with their car".

 

Just one of the many fun things about English. People at my workplace get them mixed up, and I see it occasionally online too.

[Avocado Diaboli]

9 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

The British ceded all claim as maintainers of the English language when they started adding an extra syllable to "aluminum". 

[RomantheFabulous]

21 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

The British ceded all claim as maintainers of the English language when they started adding an extra syllable to "aluminum". 

Its spelled "alluminium" with an "i". We just pronounce it how its spelled.

[Thomas A. Fine]

On 1/12/2024 at 5:16 PM, RomantheFabulous said:

Its spelled "alluminium" with an "i". We just pronounce it how its spelled.

Sir Humphrey Davy in 1808 named it "aluminum" with no "i".  But the Brits had to go and mess all that up.  Only Americans are true to the name given to the element by the British scientist.

[Thomas A. Fine]

Sigh.  So... I've heard this one before but it keeps bugging me.  And I am after all fully entitled to demand that everyone including @LinusTech pronounce words to my personal satisfaction.

 

Composite:  It's com-PAH-zit.  Not COM-puh-zit.

 

Now I will grant you that this is a differing pronunciation between American and British English.  And (unlike the travesty that is "aluminium") it is a difference that I accept.

But, last time I checked, Canada was part of North America.  Where American English is used.

[LinusTech]

3 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

Sigh.  So... I've heard this one before but it keeps bugging me.  And I am after all fully entitled to demand that everyone including @LinusTech pronounce words to my personal satisfaction.

 

Composite:  It's com-PAH-zit.  Not COM-puh-zit.

 

Now I will grant you that this is a differing pronunciation between American and British English.  And (unlike the travesty that is "aluminium") it is a difference that I accept.

But, last time I checked, Canada was part of North America.  Where American English is used.

We're commonwealth and most of our pronunciation and spelling cues actually come from British English, not American English. We just watch so much American media that we end up with a weird mish-mash.

[TetraSky]

3 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

Canada was part of North America.  Where American English is used.

Canada primarily use british english / a bastardized version of it mixed with US english. That's why we use colour, favourite, flavour... While also spelling some words like the Americans do. We don't exclusively use American English, at all.

Here's a "blog" on a literal Canadian government website that talks about it:

https://www.noslangues-ourlanguages.gc.ca/en/blogue-blog/canadian-spelling-eng

[Thomas A. Fine]

And now I'm watching a JerryRigEverything and he's adding an extra syllable to "grievances".  Over and over again.  As if it's spelled griev-i-ances.

 

The universe is just taunting me now.

 

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given that it was originally "jury-rigged" not "Jerry-rigged".  It's an old nautical term for a temporarily rigged mast that replaces a damaged main mast, which was referred to as a "jury mast", and dates back that way for centuries. But of course that's not Zack's fault, as "jerry-rigged" started happening by the early 20th century.  And, as far as I can tell, it was the Brits that were the first geting it wrong.

 

This is so rampant I think I should start a YouTube channel where I correct YouTuber pronunciations.  Because the world desperately needs an old white man with a YouTube channel, airing his petty greiviances.

[Erioch]

7 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

This is so rampant I think I should start a YouTube channel where I correct YouTuber pronunciations.  Because the world desperately needs an old white man with a YouTube channel, airing his petty greiviances.

Make sure to roast people for saying things like "I could care less".  That's my pet peeve.

7 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

"Jerry-rigged"

I always thought this came from WWII in reference to the Germans (you know they make good stuff), i.e., Jerry Cans.

[Thaldor]

22 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

Sir Humphrey Davy in 1808 named it "aluminum" with no "i".  But the Brits had to go and mess all that up.  Only Americans are true to the name given to the element by the British scientist.

Sir Humphrey Davy named it alumium in 1808.

After Swedish Jöns Jacob Berzelius in 1811 coined the term aluminium in 1812 Sir Humphrey coined the aluminum for his chemistry textbook which Thomas Young reviewed and proposed to use the aluminium rather than the less Latin sounding aluminum and after that the aluminum was only used by some in Britain while everyone else (including Americans) used and adopted the aluminium.

 

Why Americans use aluminum and the rest of the world (pretty much) aluminium isn't about who coined the term but actually about who made American dictionary. In 1828 Noah Webster released his "American dictionary for English language" where he used aluminum and as it became the American dictionary against English dictionaries (like the later Oxford English Dictionary) the American scientists moved to use aluminum because now that was kind of official American-English.

[Thomas A. Fine]

1 hour ago, Thaldor said:

Sir Humphrey Davy named it alumium in 1808.

After Swedish Jöns Jacob Berzelius in 1811 coined the term aluminium in 1812 Sir Humphrey coined the aluminum for his chemistry textbook which Thomas Young reviewed and proposed to use the aluminium rather than the less Latin sounding aluminum and after that the aluminum was only used by some in Britain while everyone else (including Americans) used and adopted the aluminium.

 

Why Americans use aluminum and the rest of the world (pretty much) aluminium isn't about who coined the term but actually about who made American dictionary. In 1828 Noah Webster released his "American dictionary for English language" where he used aluminum and as it became the American dictionary against English dictionaries (like the later Oxford English Dictionary) the American scientists moved to use aluminum because now that was kind of official American-English.

Right, Davy, who discovered the metal, first tried "alumium", which nobody uses.  He then settled on "aluminum".  Some other people, who didn't discover the metal, wanted it to rhyme with other elements, so the changed it, because that's a good reason (/s).

 

If we all dropped both aluminum and aluminium, and went back to the original alumium, I'd be ok with that.

 

Or maybe we could just make all the elements end in "ium" just so they'll rhyme?  Hydrogenium, carbonium, oxygenium, etc.  But should copper, which comes from cuprum be cuprum, cuprium, or copperium?  What abut iron?  Should it be latin ferum, or the rhyming ferium?

 

But it's pointless because platinum and molybdenum both use the "num" ending and predate aluminum.  Lanthanum came after aluminum.

[Thaldor]

20 minutes ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

Davy, who discovered the metal

Well, not really. He did a lot of tests to try to separate the metal from alumina (aluminum oxide) and got far in it but didn't manage to separate the alumnium from iron. The one who "found" (successfully separated pure aluminium) aluminium was Hans Christian Ørsted in 1824 but that is contested and he might have had potassium in his aluminium still and the actual person who made pure aluminium metal first would be Friedrich Wöhler in 1845. This is a bit problematic because Ørsted did even consider his aluminium been a find at all and when Wöhler continued his research and made his aluminium and proved Ørsteds method would have left potassium in aluminium Ørsted approved this but later Johan Fogh proved that Ørsted could have made pure aluminium because some miscalculations and happy accidents.

 

If we want to talk about who found out that alumina has some yet undiscovered metal in it, that would be Baron de Hénouville in 1760 who was probably the first to try to reduce alumina into metal or Antoine Lavoisier in 1782 who theorized alumina is an oxide of a metal or even broader spectrum Pierre Macquer in 1758 wrote that alumina resembles metallic earth (which would be pretty much the first time aluminium was considered metal rather than salt). Unless ancient Greeks and Romans didn't figured more about alum (natural aluminium sulfate) but didn't leave written records from it and in couple almost first centuries some aluminium-containing alloys were used in China but again no written records so hard to say how far they got.

 

But either way Sir Humphry Davy didn't manage to separate pure aluminum and so didn't find it. He just coined the other name.

[Thomas A. Fine]

39 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Well, not really.  ...

This is all fantastic stuff.  I love it, and thank you for taking the time to post it.  The details of history are always much more interesting than the headlines.

 

But I'm still not adding the extra 'i' to aluminum.