Why is Houston, Texas pronounced Hewston but Houston St, NYC pronounced Houseton St?
And why is Kansas pronounced Kansaz but Arkansas Arkansaw?
Why does the word coy sound like koi but coyote is kaiote?

YOu're the teacher

laughter and slaughter
The whole class laughed at me

PANDURITO said:

With every right

PANDURITO said:

did u pronouce it like slaffter?

It's a matter of linguistics.

The way a letter is pronounced depends on the surrounding letters or sounds. You need to look at the environment of the letter. All the surrounding sounds influence the letter. I had a linguistic class in grad school and that is the most I can remember. Seriously, it is very technical.

Teacher said:

Because the English language is retarded.


There are "rules", but there always seem to be exceptions.

hokie1 said:

Exactly

hokie1 said:

kind of like the rule is "I" before "E" except after "C" yet we have the word: science

InsatiableCream said:

yeah and how 2 + 2 makes 4

wait..

I hate English in that respect.

It's not phonetic.


The letters
OUGH =

tough / sounds like uh
through / sounds like eww
though / sounds like oh
thought / sounds like ow


How the fuck is anyone supposed to learn English? The only reason why foreign language speaking orgers speak and write English so well is that we PWN their asses with our vast American penises.

Imago said:

Yeah sure....

Serious said:

no, it's true.


Mods, update the Q&A portion of the website so we can put this to bed.

DanceWme said:

just sayin. accoring to that rule it should be "sceince"

InsatiableCream said:

that looks weird

Imago said:

AndGodCreatedMe said:

Teacher said:

Every one if those is an Americanism.....they speak a bastardised version...it doesn't count

mdiver said:

Although I must admit that English (in an American version sounds more sexy in some situations (shut up Phil)

if "historic" is pronounced with a hard "H" and it's not considered a "sometimes" vowel, then why do people always say "AN historic occasion"? shouldn't it be "A historic occasion"? that bugs me.
[Edited 12/27/07 8:42am]

Anxiety said:

it gets curiouser and curiouser, because Associated Press(AP) style says that it "A historic such and such" but I was always taught that its "AN historic bladdy doodle"

So theres different rules for different situations.


makes no sense at all( thanks husker du!)

AndGodCreatedMe said:

DanceWme said:

unkemptpueblo said:

good ol' AP style!

theodore said:

i dont understand how u learned english

the shit is stupid

InsatiableCream said:

Because I'm too smart

And probably because well, I don't know "the rules" :risa:
[Edited 12/27/07 9:33am]

Teacher said:

you ateacher and u dont know? remind me not to send my kids to you!

mdiver said:

I said 'American version' pffft.

AndGodCreatedMe said: