How to pronounce "Vigenere"?
Michael Groh
a paper that references the Vigenere cipher. I've never heard this name
pronounced, having only read about it in many different sources.
Would somebody provide me with the phonetic pronunciation of "Vigenere"
(as an English-speaking person might pronounce it).
Thanks very much!
- Mike
John E. Gwyn
> Would somebody provide me with the phonetic pronunciation of
> "Vigenere" (as an English-speaking person might pronounce it).
Wouldn't it be better to pronounce it like a French-speaking person?
neil...@my-deja.com
> Would somebody provide me with the phonetic pronunciation of
"Vigenere"
> (as an English-speaking person might pronounce it).
>
I'm a Brit living and working in Paris so I can just ask my collegue
sitting next to me. When he read it outload it sounded like
"Vee-jen-air" (in French you pronounce "i" as "ee" and "g" as "j" and
more often than not ignore the last letter of the word)
Neil.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
John Savard
(Michael Groh) wrote:
>I know this is a silly question, but I don't speak French and I'm giving
>a paper that references the Vigenere cipher. I've never heard this name
>pronounced, having only read about it in many different sources.
Vee-zhen-yehr is about right.
John Savard (teneerf <-)
http://www.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
NFN NMI L.
We in America revolted from the British because they can't spell or pronounce
anything right. The French are simply snooty British. So speak American and say
"Vih - gih - near". Or even better, "Vee - gee - nee - ree".
S. "Joking!" L.
Nicol So
>
> Michael Groh wrote:
> > Would somebody provide me with the phonetic pronunciation of
> > "Vigenere" (as an English-speaking person might pronounce it).
>
I think the original poster was asking for a phonetic transcription
which, when pronounced like an English-speaking person would, would
yield the (French) pronunciation of the word.
--
Nicol So, CISSP // paranoid 'at' engineer 'dot' com
Quisquater
>
> > Would somebody provide me with the phonetic pronunciation of
> "Vigenere"
> > (as an English-speaking person might pronounce it).
> >
>
> sitting next to me. When he read it outload it sounded like
> "Vee-jen-air" (in French you pronounce "i" as "ee" and "g" as "j" and
> more often than not ignore the last letter of the word)
>
> Neil.
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
IMHO this one is the right one ...
(what about pronouncing "Rijndael" from AES?).
Anton Stiglic
english -je- (but I don't realy know how to explain it, it's kind of like
-she-, but not exactly that either) and the "n" goes with the end (-air-).
So it would be something like "Vee-she-nair", but not exactly... :)
Anton
Mok-Kong Shen
pronounciations and slight modifications wrpt orthography, as long
as there is no unambiguity. ('Wouldn't a rose by any other name
smell just as sweet?') The librarians do have transcription
systems to do cataloging of foregn literatures, but there exist
more than one such, as far as I am aware.
M. K. Shen
Zuldare
John E. Gwyn <JEG...@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:38719496...@compuserve.com...
> Michael Groh wrote:
> > Would somebody provide me with the phonetic pronunciation of
> > "Vigenere" (as an English-speaking person might pronounce it).
>
Jay
>"John E. Gwyn" wrote:
>>
>> Michael Groh wrote:
>> > Would somebody provide me with the phonetic pronunciation of
>> > "Vigenere" (as an English-speaking person might pronounce it).
>>
>> Wouldn't it be better to pronounce it like a French-speaking person?
>
>I think the original poster was asking for a phonetic transcription
>which, when pronounced like an English-speaking person would, would
>yield the (French) pronunciation of the word.
Vizh-nair
Zh as in (Dr) Zhivago. (nare same as hair with an 'n').
That's not exact. The e-grave is difficult to simulate.
--
Posted by G4RGA.
Rallies Info: http://website.lineone.net/~nordland
http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~amadeus
Jay
Savard) wrote:
>On Tue, 4 Jan 2000 00:29:08 -0500, NoSpam_...@attglobal.net
>(Michael Groh) wrote:
>
>>I know this is a silly question, but I don't speak French and I'm giving
>>a paper that references the Vigenere cipher. I've never heard this name
>>pronounced, having only read about it in many different sources.
>
>Vee-zhen-yehr is about right.
That first 'e' is silent, John. More Vee-zh-nyehr.
Jay
><<Vee-zhen-yehr is>>
>
>We in America revolted from the British...
You mean America is/was revolting...?
Jay
>
>I don't agree with the -jen- part. "ge" is not exactly pronounced like
>english -je- (but I don't realy know how to explain it, it's kind of like
>
>-she-, but not exactly that either) and the "n" goes with the end (-air-).
>
>So it would be something like "Vee-she-nair", but not exactly... :)
Right. Unaccented 'e's are not pronounced. (Or shouldn't be!)
As we all know what kind of cipher we're talking about, does
it matter?
Boyd Roberts
Jay wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Jan 2000 06:47:26 GMT, jsa...@tenMAPSONeerf.edmonton.ab.ca
(John
> Savard) wrote:
>
> >Vee-zhen-yehr is about right.
>
> That first 'e' is silent, John. More Vee-zh-nyehr.
>
Yeah, that's it. The first 'e' isn't really silent, but it's glued to
the 'g' to give the 'zh' sound. I'd group the sounds this way:
vee-zhn-yehr
You need a grave accent over the second e:
vigenère
--
See, an ordinary person spends his life avoiding tense situations.
A repo man spends his life getting into tense situations.
-- Bud, Repo Man
LBMyers
>
> As we all know what kind of cipher we're talking about, does
> it matter?
>
> --
> Posted by G4RGA.
>
> Rallies Info: http://website.lineone.net/~nordland
> http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~amadeus
Not on a news group, but some people have been known to speak to each other
face to face. then it is helpful if words are pronounced in a mutually
understandable manner : ).
Tony T. Warnock
Michael Groh
Thank you.
- Mike
In article <38735BE6...@cic-mail.lanl.gov>, u091889@cic-
mail.lanl.gov says...
> vision air
>
>
Michael Groh
accent, I'd rather pronounce it "English-like". I feel I'd have less
chance of offending someone if I express the name with an American accent
than pretending I speak French!
- Mike
In article <38719496...@compuserve.com>, JEG...@compuserve.com
says...
Dan Day
wrote:
>I know this is a silly question, but I don't speak French and I'm giving
>a paper that references the Vigenere cipher. I've never heard this name
>pronounced, having only read about it in many different sources.
Hell, I have that same problem with a lot of words in English (and
English is my first language). That's the problem with doing a lot
of reading in my younger years -- I was first introduced to many words
via print, not speech.
I still recall the day when I first discovered that the written "chaos"
and the spoken "kay'os" were the same word...
--
"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the
plain Meaning of Words!"
--Samuel Adams (1722-1803), letter to John Pitts, January 21, 1776
Michael Groh
- Mike
In article <MPG.12db2b78...@news1.ibm.net>,
NoSpam_...@attglobal.net says...
> I know this is a silly question, but I don't speak French and I'm giving
> a paper that references the Vigenere cipher. I've never heard this name
> pronounced, having only read about it in many different sources.
>
> Would somebody provide me with the phonetic pronunciation of "Vigenere"
> (as an English-speaking person might pronounce it).
>
Guy Macon
VIY-AAH-GRUH???
Zuldare
Talking face to face? My God, when did they start that??
LBMyers <LBM...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:84vg12$1l0s$1...@newssvr04-int.news.prodigy.com...
William Rowden
In article <38750e3...@news.globalcenter.net>,
Dan Day <d...@firstnethou.com> wrote:
> Hell, I have that same problem with a lot of words in English (and
> English is my first language). That's the problem with doing a lot
> of reading in my younger years -- I was first introduced to many
> words via print, not speech.
>
> I still recall the day when I first discovered that the written
> "chaos" and the spoken "kay'os" were the same word...
:-)
I, too, was a reading child. "Omnipotent" is logically "omni-potent"
/om'nee poe'tent/, right? I also remember the quizzical look I
received when I first said "annihilation," complete with two short
i's. Why is that "h" there?
--
-William
SPAM filtered; damages claimed for UCE according to RCW19.86
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Fingerprint: FB4B E2CD 25AF 95E5 ADBB DA28 379D 47DB 599E 0B1A
John Myre
> Dan Day <d...@firstnethou.com> wrote:
...
> > I still recall the day when I first discovered that the written
> > "chaos" and the spoken "kay'os" were the same word...
> :-)
>
> I, too, was a reading child. "Omnipotent" is logically "omni-potent"
> /om'nee poe'tent/, right? I also remember the quizzical look I
> received when I first said "annihilation," complete with two short
> i's. Why is that "h" there?
:-)
It isn't quite the same, but I certainly remember my chagrin when I
figured out that "misled" is not the past tense of "misle" (with a
long "i" and "s" as "z").
(For those who don't know English so well - there is no such word as
"misle". If there were, why of course it would mean "to mislead").
John
P.S.
More on the vagaries of English, particularly spelling...
Do you remember the joke about how to pronounce "ghoti"?
"gh" as in "enough"
"o" as in "women"
"ti" as in "nation"
so...
pronounce it: "fish"!
Tony T. Warnock
There is no English word with gh at the beginning of a sylable that has the
f sound. There is only one word with o as a short i. There are no words in
English with ti as sh (there are words with tion as shun or tian ash shun.)
Shaw's example is cute but has little to do with English spelling. On the
other hand, "unionize" is fun to give to automatic hyphenation routines.
Mike Rosing
>
> William Rowden wrote:
> > Dan Day <d...@firstnethou.com> wrote:
> ...
> > > I still recall the day when I first discovered that the written
> > > "chaos" and the spoken "kay'os" were the same word...
> > :-)
> >
> > I, too, was a reading child. "Omnipotent" is logically "omni-potent"
> > /om'nee poe'tent/, right? I also remember the quizzical look I
> > received when I first said "annihilation," complete with two short
> > i's. Why is that "h" there?
>
> :-)
>
> It isn't quite the same, but I certainly remember my chagrin when I
> figured out that "misled" is not the past tense of "misle" (with a
> long "i" and "s" as "z").
>
> (For those who don't know English so well - there is no such word as
> "misle". If there were, why of course it would mean "to mislead").
My wife still laughs when I say armegadon - ar-MEG-a-don. I think
it was some 20 years before I actually heard anyone else say the
word right :-)
Patience, persistence, truth,
Dr. mike
Dan Day
<u09...@cic-mail.lanl.gov> wrote:
>> "gh" as in "enough"
>> "o" as in "women"
>> "ti" as in "nation"
>>
>> so...
>> pronounce it: "fish"!
>
>There is no English word with gh at the beginning of a sylable that has the
>f sound. There is only one word with o as a short i. There are no words in
>English with ti as sh (there are words with tion as shun or tian ash shun.)
>Shaw's example is cute but has little to do with English spelling.
I think you're being overly pedantic here.
Yes, if someone is intimately familiar with English spelling and
pronunciation, they'll know that "gh" can only be an "f" at the END
of a syllable, etc., but the entire POINT is that those coming to
English for the first time find so many exceptions, special rules,
special cases, and obscure points that they find it very hard to
get a grasp on them all.
The point of the "ghoti" example is that you can find "special cases"
so "special" that even native English speakers may not recognize
them when they come up in a different context.
It would be nearly impossible to come up with an equivalent
example in, say, Spanish.
And speaking of Spanish...
> On the
>other hand, "unionize" is fun to give to automatic hyphenation routines.
I once heard a bunch of young ladies from South America, who were
at a US college in order to learn English, try to pronounce the
name of the town of "Uniondale". It came out "Oon-ee-un-DAH-lay".
Three syllables rendered as five, a different syllable stressed,
and absolutely no syllable in common with the English pronunciation.
David A Molnar
> I, too, was a reading child. "Omnipotent" is logically "omni-potent"
> /om'nee poe'tent/, right? I also remember the quizzical look I
> received when I first said "annihilation," complete with two short
> i's. Why is that "h" there?
You're in good company. My freshman calc prof pronounced it the same
way. After a while I caught myself doing the same...
This same prof also had an unforgettable introduction to Markov
processes. "We will study the population of rabbits...and fish. In a very
strange world where the rabbits can not only eat the fish, but also be
eaten *by* the fish."
Thanks,
-David
Dan Day
>
>VIY-AAH-GRUH???
And how much is Pfizer paying you for that plug? :-)
Nemo Outis
The "h" is there because nihil is nothing in Latin.
Some words are so regularly mispronounced that dictionaries now recognize
the "erroneous" pronunciation, such as the ones with double c (e.g., "flaccid"
which is pronounced roughly as "flak-sid" not "flas-sid"). How many people
regularly mispronounce "satiety" (very roughly "sat-eye-it-ee")?
Unfortunately if enough people persist long enough in mispronouncing these
words, they (or their children) will eventually become "right," since what
constitutes "correct English" is "descriptive rather than prescriptive,"
"normative rather than positive," i.e., is based on usage (usually cultivated
or educated usage, but that standard is also becoming diluted to just mass
usage).
And how many people pronounce "awry" as "awe-ree" rather than "a-rye?"
Regards,
In article <855emu$3ba$1...@eskinews.eskimo.com>, row...@eskimo.com (William
Rowden) wrote:
>I'm joining the topic drift.
>
>In article <38750e3...@news.globalcenter.net>,
>Dan Day <d...@firstnethou.com> wrote:
>> Hell, I have that same problem with a lot of words in English (and
>> English is my first language). That's the problem with doing a lot
>> of reading in my younger years -- I was first introduced to many
>> words via print, not speech.
>>
>> I still recall the day when I first discovered that the written
>> "chaos" and the spoken "kay'os" were the same word...
>
>:-)
>
Guy Macon
William Rowden wrote:
>
>I'm joining the topic drift.
>
>
>> I still recall the day when I first discovered that the written
>> "chaos" and the spoken "kay'os" were the same word...
>
>/om'nee poe'tent/, right? I also remember the quizzical look I
>received when I first said "annihilation," complete with two short
>i's. Why is that "h" there?
Oddly enough, I can answer that question. What is happening is that
the way we pronounce words shifts while the spelling remains.
"Colonel" used to be prounounced as it is spelled.
There is speculation that the wide distribution of movies and TV
shows from the past has stopped this drift, and that we are moving
towards everybody speaking with a southern california accent
(because that's where the TV shows are often made).
Guy Macon
>"unionize" is fun to give to automatic hyphenation routines.
Here are two sentences to give to automatic language translators:
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like an orange.
Lincoln Yeoh
wrote:
>Unfortunately if enough people persist long enough in mispronouncing these
>words, they (or their children) will eventually become "right," since what
>constitutes "correct English" is "descriptive rather than prescriptive,"
Let's vote for pronouncing omnipotent as omni-potent. :).
Link.
****************************
Reply to: @Spam to
lyeoh at @peo...@uu.net
pop.jaring.my @
*******************************
wtshaw
> On Sat, 08 Jan 2000 02:13:30 GMT, nemo_...@hotmail.com (Nemo Outis)
> wrote:
>
> >Unfortunately if enough people persist long enough in mispronouncing these
> >words, they (or their children) will eventually become "right," since what
> >constitutes "correct English" is "descriptive rather than prescriptive,"
>
> Let's vote for pronouncing omnipotent as omni-potent. :).
>
What would you do with omniscient? But, if you are, you know already.
--
To prevent the comprimise of with the most common configuration
of computers is something like preventing a sculptor from being too original. If a computer design is corruptable, it will be.
Tony T. Warnock
sin-drome.
Tony T. Warnock
"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."
Nemo Outis
match."
Regards,
Mike McCarty
Tony T. Warnock <t...@lanl.gov> wrote:
)
)There is no English word with gh at the beginning of a sylable that has the
)f sound. There is only one word with o as a short i. There are no words in
This is dialectally dependent. For example, "persimmon" is in some
American english dialects pronounced "persimmin". "Women" is of course
universally pronounced "wimmin" in American English.
Perhaps you could back off a little on your pronouncements?
)English with ti as sh (there are words with tion as shun or tian ash shun.)
)Shaw's example is cute but has little to do with English spelling. On the
)other hand, "unionize" is fun to give to automatic hyphenation routines.
--
----
char *p="char *p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
This message made from 100% recycled bits.
I don't speak for Alcatel <- They make me say that.
Mike McCarty
)
)> In article <38764C1D...@cic-mail.lanl.gov>, u09...@cic-mail.lanl.gov (Tony T. Warnock) wrote:
)>
)> >"unionize" is fun to give to automatic hyphenation routines.
)>
)> Here are two sentences to give to automatic language translators:
)>
)> Time flies like an arrow.
)>
)> Fruit flies like an orange.
)
)"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."
"The vodka is strong, but the meat is rotten."
Translated to Russian and back to English in the very early 60s by a
computer.
Mike McCarty
William Rowden <row...@eskimo.com> wrote:
)I, too, was a reading child. "Omnipotent" is logically "omni-potent"
)/om'nee poe'tent/, right? I also remember the quizzical look I
)received when I first said "annihilation," complete with two short
)i's. Why is that "h" there?
It comes from latin "nihil" meaning "nothing".
Mike McCarty
Mike Rosing <ros...@physiology.wisc.edu> wrote:
)My wife still laughs when I say armegadon - ar-MEG-a-don. I think
)it was some 20 years before I actually heard anyone else say the
)word right :-)
Perhaps it would have helped if you had seen it spelled correctly
armageddon
coming from the valley of Megiddo.
Mike
Xcott Craver
>)There is no English word with gh at the beginning of a sylable that has the
>)f sound. There is only one word with o as a short i. There are no words in
>
>This is dialectally dependent. For example, "persimmon" is in some
>American english dialects pronounced "persimmin".
It's hard to distinguish with vowels that short (in the time
domain,) but lots of words ending "on" are pronounced "in"
by some people. "Bacon" is another example. Mmmm, Bacon!
-Scott
Guy Macon
> It's hard to distinguish with vowels that short (in the time
> domain,) but lots of words ending "on" are pronounced "in"
> by some people. "Bacon" is another example. Mmmm, Bacon!
I pronounce my name Guy (as in Eye) Macon (as in Make Un-well).
I get a lot of variations along the "in" "on" "un" spectrum.
People have trouble writing it down correctly when I say it on
the phone. What prouounciation would be better? I have had
some success with GEE (G as in Good, EE as in Free) MAH-SEE-ON
(MA as in Matter, SEE as in Seeing, ON as in On/Off). (French)
Douglas A. Gwyn
> )"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."
> "The vodka is strong, but the meat is rotten."
> Translated to Russian and back to English in the very early 60s by a
> computer.
That seems to be an urban legend.
Although the general state of machine translation was (and is)
such that such poor translations frequently occur. High-quality
translation requires *understanding* the original, then
re-expressing the thought in the new language. Machines just
can't do that yet.
Mike McCarty
Douglas A. Gwyn <DAG...@null.net> wrote:
)Mike McCarty wrote:
)> )"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."
)> "The vodka is strong, but the meat is rotten."
)> Translated to Russian and back to English in the very early 60s by a
)> computer.
)
)That seems to be an urban legend.
That's interesting. Do you have any evidence? I recall having read the
story in a book in the early 60s which purported to give the name of
the machine, the name of the project, and the date on which it
occurred. Of course, the book may have been in error. Also, I do not
recall any of these details, since in the early 60s I was much younger
than I am now.
Of course, it is the *kind* of thing that could be a legend. I make no
claims either way.
)Although the general state of machine translation was (and is)
)such that such poor translations frequently occur. High-quality
)translation requires *understanding* the original, then
)re-expressing the thought in the new language. Machines just
)can't do that yet.
Actually, you misstate the situation. The state is such that poor
translations *always* occur. Good machine translation has yet to be
demonstrated, ever.
In fact, machine comprehension has yet to be demonstrated. And I agree
with you that comprehension of some sort is a necessary predecessor to
translation. Some reasonable progress has been made with comprehension.
You show your bias by using the word "yet". Why not just say "Machines
cannot do that at present"?
:-)
Good machine translation, like profitable fusion power, seems always 20
years away. It was 20 years away in the 50s. It is still 20 years away.
For all I know, it will always be 20 years away.
Derek Bell
: It isn't quite the same, but I certainly remember my chagrin when I
: figured out that "misled" is not the past tense of "misle" (with a
: long "i" and "s" as "z").
That reminds me of the poem in one of Douglas Hofstadters' books that
began:
What *is* the past tense of beware?
Do we say he bewore being caught?
Unfortunately, I can't remember the author.
: Do you remember the joke about how to pronounce "ghoti"?
Yep, George Bernard Shaw came up with it.
Derek
--
Derek Bell db...@maths.tcd.ie | Socrates would have loved
WWW: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dbell/index.html| usenet.
PGP: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dbell/key.asc | - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
Douglas A. Gwyn
> Actually, you misstate the situation. The state is such that poor
> translations *always* occur. Good machine translation has yet to be
> demonstrated, ever.
*Sometimes* the better MT programs actually translate a limited
sample correctly, it's just that they can't be counted on to always
do so.
> You show your bias by using the word "yet". Why not just say "Machines
> cannot do that at present"?
Because the importance of the task is evident, and people continue
to work on the problem.
> Good machine translation, like profitable fusion power, seems always 20
> years away. It was 20 years away in the 50s. It is still 20 years away.
> For all I know, it will always be 20 years away.
The same may be said for other "AI" claims. This has been due
more to optimistic, wishful thinking by AI researchers, who
extrapolated their limited success on toy problems to the general
problem, without taking into account the fact that the general
problem would require some new, undiscovered approach.
Trevor Jackson, III
> Mike McCarty wrote:
> > Actually, you misstate the situation. The state is such that poor
> > translations *always* occur. Good machine translation has yet to be
> > demonstrated, ever.
>
> *Sometimes* the better MT programs actually translate a limited
> sample correctly, it's just that they can't be counted on to always
> do so.
Neither can humans. Consider Carter's translator's gaffes (in Poland I
believe).
>
>
> > You show your bias by using the word "yet". Why not just say "Machines
> > cannot do that at present"?
>
> Because the importance of the task is evident, and people continue
> to work on the problem.
>
> > Good machine translation, like profitable fusion power, seems always 20
> > years away. It was 20 years away in the 50s. It is still 20 years away.
> > For all I know, it will always be 20 years away.
>
> The same may be said for other "AI" claims. This has been due
> more to optimistic, wishful thinking by AI researchers, who
> extrapolated their limited success on toy problems to the general
> problem, without taking into account the fact that the general
> problem would require some new, undiscovered approach.
Case in point: the reduction of all verbs to only five fundamental verbs as a
basis for linguistic comprehension. The reduction causes so much loss of
context that true comprehension is probably impossible.
John Savard
<full...@aspi.net> wrote:
>Case in point: the reduction of all verbs to only five fundamental verbs as a
>basis for linguistic comprehension. The reduction causes so much loss of
>context that true comprehension is probably impossible.
Well, in Basic English that simply resulted in replacing every verb by
a unique combination of a verb and a noun or preposition. (e.g., "take
heart" or "go out")
That didn't change anything fundamentally, it simply required people
to learn an entirely new vocabulary for no particular reason.
John Savard (teneerf <-)
http://www.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
John Savard
Paul Gover
> William Rowden wrote:
> > ...
> >I, too, was a reading child. "Omnipotent" is logically "omni-potent"
In my version (:-) of UK English, annihilation can be pronounced
"an-eye-ilation" - two Is, but no h. I can believe that US practice
is to slur them together. There "h" is there from Latin - the word's
root is "nihil", Latin for "nothing", also the root for "nil".
I was told by a foreign friend that the normal rule for English is that
the emphasis is on the third syllable of the word. Hence the normal
pronunciation of omnipotent. It's always amused me how much better
foreigners' understanding of English is than native speakers'.
Paul Gover
Douglas A. Gwyn
> I was told by a foreign friend that the normal rule for English is that
> the emphasis is on the third syllable of the word. Hence the normal
> pronunciation of omnipotent. It's always amused me how much better
> foreigners' understanding of English is than native speakers'.
Apparently not!
Guy Macon
No rule is perfect, but "next to the last syllable" comes much
closer than what your foreign friend came up with.
William Rowden
Paul Gover <paul_...@uk.nospam.ibm.nospam.com> wrote:
> Guy Macon wrote:
> > William Rowden wrote:
> > > ...
> > >I, too, was a reading child. "Omnipotent" is logically "omni-
potent"
> > >/om'nee poe'tent/, right? I also remember the quizzical look I
> > >received when I first said "annihilation," complete with two short
> > >i's. Why is that "h" there?
> > ...
>
> In my version (:-) of UK English, annihilation can be pronounced
> "an-eye-ilation" - two Is, but no h. I can believe that US practice
> is to slur them together.
Actually, at least on the West Coast, most pronounce it similarly:
\uh neye' uh lay.shun\--with a long 'i' and a schwa, but no 'h'. (It's
unfortunate I can't put phonetic symbols here.)
> There "h" is there from Latin - the word's
> root is "nihil", Latin for "nothing", also the root for "nil".
My question was the echo of my question as a child for whom spelling
was not logical, but thanks to all who explained the etymology.
> I was told by a foreign friend that the normal rule for English is
> that the emphasis is on the third syllable of the word. Hence the
> normal pronunciation of omnipotent. It's always amused me how much
> better foreigners' understanding of English is than native speakers'.
I don't understand this. In both "annihilation" and "omnipotent," as I
say those words (now that I've heard others say them :-)), the emphasis
is on the second syllable (with a secondary emphasis on the penultimate
syllable in "annihilation"). What's your pronunciation of "omnipotent"?
--
-William
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Before you buy.
Derek Bell
:> Mike McCarty wrote:
:> sample correctly, it's just that they can't be counted on to always
:> do so.
: Neither can humans. Consider Carter's translator's gaffes (in Poland I
: believe).
ISTR two examples: Poles were told Carter had left America "never to
return" and a phrase was translated as "lusts for the future". Both appeared in
either _The Book of Heroic Failures_ or _The Return of Heroic Failures_, both
by Stephen Pile.
Richard Herring
> In article <388614FB...@home.com>, dag...@home.com (Douglas A. Gwyn) wrote:
> >
> >Paul Gover wrote:
> >> the emphasis is on the third syllable of the word. Hence the normal
> >> pronunciation of omnipotent. It's always amused me how much better
> >> foreigners' understanding of English is than native speakers'.
You snipped DAG's telling comment.
> No rule is perfect, but "next to the last syllable" comes much
> closer than what your foreign friend came up with.
As a native speaker of British English, personally I put the stress
on the *second* syllable. So does my dictionary.
--
Richard Herring | <richard...@gecm.com>
Guy Macon
>
>> No rule is perfect, but "next to the last syllable" comes much
>> closer than what your foreign friend came up with.
>
>As a native speaker of British English, personally I put the stress
>on the *second* syllable. So does my dictionary.
>
Interesting! I am a Los Angeles California native, and we get
to be the standard for "accent free" American English because
all of the movies and television shows are made here. ;)
Clearly, for one or three syllable words both rules act the same.
For two syllable words and four or more syllable words the rules
diverge. Do you really say britISH instead of BRITish, highLAND
instead of HIGHland? InSTALLtion instead of InstaLAtion, and
therMOnuclear instead of thermoNUclear?
Of course there are always exceptions, such a MICrosoft and
InterPLANetary...
Paul Gover
> ...
> I don't understand this. In both "annihilation" and "omnipotent," as
> emphasis is on the second syllable (with a secondary emphasis on the
> penultimate syllable in "annihilation"). What's your pronunciation of
> "omnipotent"?
om-nip-otent, with emphasis on the second; but not omni-potent. I think
I'm now convinced by the penultimate syllable rule. Which of course
agrees with the third syllable rule, provided we stick to
con-vol-ut-ed wording :-)
Paul Gover.
wtshaw
> My question was the echo of my question as a child for whom spelling
> was not logical, but thanks to all who explained the etymology.
>
The best universal rule in such things in English is that there is no
universal rule. Of course, you can pick French, which THEY say is always
right, German, which is better ronounced with a beer under your belt,
Russian, which is best pronounced while mad, or Italian, which sounds best
in an argument.
Richard Herring
Of course not :-)
I think you've missed the context of the original
discussion, which was about the pronunciation of "omnipotent".
--
Richard Herring | <richard...@gecm.com>