h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Heen wondering for a while now. How are you supposed to pronounce the following words:

- envelope: is it "on-velope" or "en-velope"?

- vase: is it "vay-se" or "vah-se" or "vo-se"?

- yogurt: is it "yo-urt" (like yo! the greeting) or "yog-urt"?

Just been wondering coz so many people say things in different ways. It's not just accents though.

A good place to look is here:

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/dictionaryhome.aspx

You can listen to how things are pronounced.

Interesting.

Though the bloke that does the voice seems to be American. Typical I suppose for an msn dictionary. He says a few things differently to the way I would. Wonder if that's a different country thing, or if it's been researched and he's right.

Language, and hence pronunciation, is a pretty fluid thing. It's always changing, and I don't think one way of saying something is necessarily 'right', it's just more common. Get someone from Glasgow and someone from Oxford together and they'll hardly pronounce any words the same, so who is right and who is wrong there? As long as you can make yourself understood, no worries

Suppose so. Just always struck me as weird that some things seem to transcend accents.

Well, there is the phonetical alpahabet next to the words, and from what I can judge, the pronunciation is 'correct'.

Well I'd say "on-velope", "vahz" and "yog-urt". The Oxford Dictionary of English gives both pronunciations for envelop and yogurt, but doesn't think vase needs a guide.

Personally, I say EN-vel-ope, varrs, and YOG-urt (as opposed to the American YO-gurt).

The Encarta links will only tell you how the people who wrote Encarta think they should be pronounced.

I say en-velope, varze and yog-urt, but that doesn't make them right. There really isn't a right way with most words - it's however you say them according to your own accent.

Except for eye-rak and eye-ran. That's just plain wrong

Personally I say both EN vel ope and ON vel ope interchangeably, but only use YOG urt and VARse variants. It only matters which pronunciation you use if you care what the person hearing you thinks or might react.
I am a little intolerant to VAYse, and could find someone pronouncing it that way irritating.
If they say YO gurt they are pigeonholed as Americans - would you mind being pigeonholed?

On the other hand modulating your speech to match someone else's when speaking to them can be interpreted as making fun of their accent, though I know people who do it unintentionally.

You can't win.

I find VAY-se annoying to. Just sounds pretentious or something.

[ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ ] might be another place to check.

Thanks! They've got hangman! Will have a play about on that later.