OT Humour - Written & Spoken English

Houston Street in downtown Manhattan (NYC) is
pronounced HOUSE-ton, not YOUS-ton. From that comes the
trendy area called SoHo, for South of Houston.

In most American places, the name Pulaski (Hero of
American Revolution) is Pu-LAS-key or Pa-Laskey. In
the small town of Pulaski, Virginia, it is PEW-lasskey.

PAT, a font of trivia!

klh in VA wrote:

Houston ....
in georgia (state of, usa) pronounced houseton
in texas, (no comment on) pronounced hueston

klh in va

My Granma used to "wrinch" the clothes out--and she was born/raised in
Illinois. G

Pati, in Phx

Sunny wrote:

If any of you are from rural Texas you'll recognize these:

corner -- prounounced "co'ner" -- keeping the long o but dropping the
r

rinse -- pronounced "wrench"

that there -- pronounced "at air" -- as in "at air old truck is on his
last legs."

There are millions more. I had a professor in college (Baylor
University) who was writing a book on Texasisms. I don't know if he
finished it or not. I suspect it could be an open-ended volume.

Sunny

That isn't really so odd. If it is a Spanish/Mexican type name.
Remember that "Mexico" is pronounced "Me-hi-co", and with a vowel on
each side of the "x" the "h" sound would be sort of blended in. So Bexar
could sound like "be-ar" very easily, one of those almost 2 syllable words.

BG
Pati, in Phx, who also has to watch any out of the ordinary words with
"LL" in them. It is automatically assumed to be pronounced with a "y"
(as in the starting sound of "yellow") sound.



Sunny wrote:

I've got a place name oddity for you from Texas. The name is spelled
"Bexar".... probably named for some long ago settler. It's pronounced
exactly the same as "bare" as in "Oh my, the baby's run outside bare
again."

I learned the correct pronunciation the hard way. I was a disc jockey
for a tiney FM radio station when I was in college. We played "easy
listening" music. I read the news and weather on the hour and half
hour. Bexar county was one of the ones that always led the list of
neighboring counties with tornado alerts. Of course, I said it wrong
the first time I read it on the air, mangling the name by trying to
get that "x" in there somewhere. Within minutes the phone began to
ring. Oh my, who knew we had that many listeners? And so many from
Bexar County??

Sunny

Interesting about SoHo


Out here newsreaders would say Hews-ton no matter where the
place they were talking about lol

--

Cheryl & the Cats in OZ
o o o o o o
( Y ) ( Y ) and ( Y )
Boofhead Donut Rasputin
http://community.webshots.com/user/witchofthewest
catsatararatATyahooDOTcomDOTau


"Pat in Virginia" wrote in message
...
: Houston Street in downtown Manhattan (NYC) is
: pronounced HOUSE-ton, not YOUS-ton. From that comes the
: trendy area called SoHo, for South of Houston.
:
: In most American places, the name Pulaski (Hero of
: American Revolution) is Pu-LAS-key or Pa-Laskey. In
: the small town of Pulaski, Virginia, it is PEW-lasskey.
:
: PAT, a font of trivia!
:
: klh in VA wrote:
:
: Houston ....
: in georgia (state of, usa) pronounced houseton
: in texas, (no comment on) pronounced hueston
:
: klh in va
:

I have heard visitors talk about Bare County but had never
given a thought to how it was spelled! I just assumed it
was "Bear" County lol



How would you pronounce Uluru?
http://www.crystalinks.com/ayersrock.html
Most Australians would have no problem pronouncing Oo-la-roo
.. . . . . . but they might not be able to spell it
correctly. This often happens with Aboriginal names because
they had no written language at the time of European
settlement.

We Aussies tend to "clip" our pronounciations, as for the
town that - correctly - was named Wagga Wagga, but is now
known as Wagga. Pronunciation = Wogguh. There are many
such. We chuckle to hear our cities' names drawn out in
pronounciations by visitors. For us Melbourne is Mel-b'n
and Brisbain is Bris-b'n, and Adelaide is Ad'l-aid. And of
cource my local town of Horsham is Hor-sh'm
--

Cheryl & the Cats in OZ
o o o o o o
( Y ) ( Y ) and ( Y )
Boofhead Donut Rasputin
http://community.webshots.com/user/witchofthewest
catsatararatATyahooDOTcomDOTau


"Sunny" wrote in message
ups.com...
: I've got a place name oddity for you from Texas. The name
is spelled
: "Bexar".... probably named for some long ago settler. It's
pronounced
: exactly the same as "bare" as in "Oh my, the baby's run
outside bare
: again."
:
: I learned the correct pronunciation the hard way. I was a
disc jockey
: for a tiney FM radio station when I was in college. We
played "easy
: listening" music. I read the news and weather on the hour
and half
: hour. Bexar county was one of the ones that always led the
list of
: neighboring counties with tornado alerts. Of course, I
said it wrong
: the first time I read it on the air, mangling the name by
trying to
: get that "x" in there somewhere. Within minutes the phone
began to
: ring. Oh my, who knew we had that many listeners? And so
many from
: Bexar County??
:
: Sunny
:
:

Howdy!

Growing up south of there we said Bexar like other
folks I know from there, "ba-er", 'cause that "x" is an "h"
sound in Spanish and gets lost when the locals say the name (quickly).
Have to listen closely to catch it but it is 2 syllables. ;-D
Then there's Mexia, completely mangled in pronunciation, as
is San Rafael north of San Francisco.
Waxahachie is easy. g

Houston, Hooston, coupon, coopon. 'mater, 'motter VBG

Quilts & Quilters in Bexar County:
http://www.sanantonioquilt.org/
http://www.lascolchas.com/index.htm
http://www.robertkaufman.com/quiltin...f_san_antonio/

R/Sandy

On 5/9/07 1:19 PM, in article
, "Sunny"
wrote:

I've got a place name oddity for you from Texas. The name is spelled
"Bexar".... probably named for some long ago settler. It's pronounced
exactly the same as "bare" as in "Oh my, the baby's run outside bare
again."

I learned the correct pronunciation the hard way. I was a disc jockey
for a tiney FM radio station when I was in college. We played "easy
listening" music. I read the news and weather on the hour and half
hour. Bexar county was one of the ones that always led the list of
neighboring counties with tornado alerts. Of course, I said it wrong
the first time I read it on the air, mangling the name by trying to
get that "x" in there somewhere. Within minutes the phone began to
ring. Oh my, who knew we had that many listeners? And so many from
Bexar County??

Sunny

I do reading tutoring in an elementary school - all my students are ESL
- Oriental. I made up a series fo flash cards to impress on them the
necessity of looking at all the letters in the word they're reading, not
just the overall impression of the word.
The words a
though
thought
thorough
through
threw
throughout
Of course, I had to define most of the words for them

Cathy in BC

CATS wrote:
If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you
will be speaking English better than 90% of the native
English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a
Frenchman said he'd prefer six months of hard labour to
reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.





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,

no, we don't add letters - we spell like in Britain - the Americans took
the letter'U' away

Cathy in BC
I find the biggest difference between the pronunciations of words come
between the USA and Canadian versions because of spelling for the most part.

We add letters in some words like: honour, neighbour and colour for example.

~KK in BC~

CATS wrote:
I have heard visitors talk about Bare County but had never
given a thought to how it was spelled! I just assumed it
was "Bear" County lol

How would you pronounce Uluru?
http://www.crystalinks.com/ayersrock.html
Most Australians would have no problem pronouncing Oo-la-roo
. . . . . . but they might not be able to spell it
correctly. This often happens with Aboriginal names because
they had no written language at the time of European
settlement.

We Aussies tend to "clip" our pronounciations, as for the
town that - correctly - was named Wagga Wagga, but is now
known as Wagga. Pronunciation = Wogguh. There are many
such. We chuckle to hear our cities' names drawn out in
pronounciations by visitors. For us Melbourne is Mel-b'n
and Brisbain is Bris-b'n, and Adelaide is Ad'l-aid. And of
cource my local town of Horsham is Hor-sh'm

One of the local suburbs here is Toronto, always gets
shortened to "Trono", and there's Beresfield is shortened
to "Bero".

--
Melinda
http://cust.idl.com.au/athol

Looking for dip thongs?
Check Victoria's Secret.
NAYY, PAT in VA/USA

Sunny wrote:
I for one want our diphthongs back! Who took them and where did they
go??? BEG I say we begin a "Get Back the Diphthong" movement. It
could go far.

Sunny