Same word different pronunciation?

[Arch]

Eight ways to say 'ough':

"The dough-faced ploughboy coughed and hiccoughed his way through Loughborough to the lough"

I love our language and its eccentricities. It's amazing too, how so many millions around the world have mastered it and its madnesses, when we seem to find picking up other much more logical languages so hard...

 

[Red Light]

The things you learn on Cyclechat! So we don't have to pronounce IBM as ibbum then?

You could always pronounce IKEA ee-koh-ay-are if you wished.

 

[Norm]

Why isn't hice to house as mice is to mouse? If that makes sense...

This is a good one, as both house and mouse come down through Norse and German to appear in Middle English, as well as appearing in a similar form in many current European languages (Dutch, German, Swedish etc).

However, I believe that house originated in the early middle ages (Gothic?) so, in English, it followed the grammar of the time by putting an s on the end, whereas mouse is considerably older and probably picked up something from ancient Greek.

It's possibly interesting that in German, Haus and Maus become Häuser and Mäuser.

 

[Noodley]

Is pasty pronounced paystay or pahstay? Or something else?

 

[Arch]

Is pasty pronounced paystay or pahstay? Or something else?

At work, we just say 'chonion', since the best pasties from Thomases the local baker are the cheese and onion ones, and we're so lazy we abbreviated it...

 

[oscarplu]

How about scone and scone.?

 

[Arch]

How about scone and scone.?

There is no debate over that. It rhymes with 'gone', it has to, or the joke doesn't work.