I heard someone on TV today pronounce "school" as "skoo-wool" with two syllables and of course that set my mind off on how everyone pronounces everything differently and somehow we all understand each other. I say "school" with one syllable (rhymes with "cool"). I have my own weird things. I pronounce "hanger" and "swinger" with a very hard N and G, and My Sweetie makes (ruthless!!) fun of me for it. One of the weirdest things I do is pronounce "your" and "you're" differently. I pronounce "your" like it rhymes with "yore" and I pronounce "you're" like it rhymes with "her." (I was going to say "like it rhymes with 'pure' " but then I realized that some people pronounce "pure" with two syllables like "pew-er.") I have no idea why I pronounce them differently. At least I always spell them right. Maybe that's because they are such different words to me. Yore momma told me yer going batshit crazy over there.
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I have no idea why I can't say "hanger" and "swinger" like a normal person. I can't even figure out how I'm supposed to say them. At least I don't add syllables to words. What's that all about? Most Texans add extra syllables to words. They make "Hey y'all" a four syllable sentence. In North Carolina that phrase is maybe one and a half syllables. Texans even make the word "up" a two syllable word when they ask, "What's up?" That's weird. Not wee-yerd. Just weird.
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So another informal poll here: How do you pronounce "school" and "pure" and "you're" and "your"? And isn't it cool that we still all understand each other?
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7 comments:
these questions always make me think because I don't usually realize how I pronounce something. So as I'm writing these I'm saying these out loud and the person in the office next to me probably thinks I'm weird (as if I wasn't weird enough already). School - one syllable. Pure - also one syllable. You're and your sound a lot a like yore. I think I'm better about this one...wolf. I got teased a lot for saying woof. I got teased for pronouncing numerical wrong...not even sure how to write that one. Didn't really pronounce the ERR in numerical. just ran it all together. frankly, I'm a lazy talker. not as bad as some people, but still too lazy. when I took French in high school the teacher always told me to enunciate. whatever. :)
Your = yore
You're = yewre
And I love the expression batshit crazy...
- Jazz
You are too damn silly!!!
I pronounce school like you do, and don't differentiate much between your and you're. This reminds me of the old joke: John Smith was recently pronounced dead, except in Alabama where he was pronounced dayud.
I notice that I pronounce things when I'm just talking differently from when I'm reading out loud. I think I do pronounce you're & your...yer; but if I'm reading them out loud, I pronounce them your. I pronounce pecan as pu-khan, as in the "Wrath of Khan", not PEE-Can. I pronounce caramel differently depending on how I use it. A caramel apple is car-mul, but sometimes I refer to the plain candy or flavor as care-a-mel, such as it has a nice care-a-mel sauce. You can probably tell me if I have any funny pronunciations because you hear me. Not sure if we notice those things as much by ourselves?
emerube,
~~Woof!! I don't know why that's so funny to me. It reminds me of my daughter: she pronounces "well" as "wool" when she starts a sentence with an explanation like:
Wool, I meant to get to that.
Jazz,
~~In the south if you were to pronounce "you're" as "yewre" people would just think you are saying "you are."
Lo,
~~I know that's right.
Ian,
~~Dayumm straight!
Carole,
~~I taught myself years ago to say "puh-khan" because "pee-can" with a southern accent is rather unpleasant sounding. I think it's hilarious that you pronounce "caramel" two fifferent ways. I always say it with three syllables. I pronounce it like:
care uh mel
I know some people pronounce the first syllable like "car" (the automobile)
Your/You're--same here.
As for adding syllables, when I was but a teenie bopper, I called 4-1-1 to find a phone number of a boy I liked. The operator pronounced five "fy-ehv." The phone number had 3 fy-ehvs in it. Boy long gone, but I still remember that stupid phone number.
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