neutral American English pronunciation of "Math.sin"

[Roedy Green]

"mk" => "EmkeI"

that one for private in-head pronunciation is "mook".
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com

Responsible Development is the style of development I aspire to now. It can be summarized by answering the question, “How would I develop if it were my money?” I’m amazed how many theoretical arguments evaporate when faced with this question.
~ Kent Beck (born: 1961 age: 49) , evangelist for extreme programming.

 

[Roedy Green]

"ls" => "ElEs"
"rd" => "Ardi"
"mk" => "EmkeI"

FORTH is the only langugage I can recall that specified the
pronunciation of everything. Back then programmers collaborated over
the telephone much more frequently.

I still mentally distinguish ' = tick and " = quote, a FORTH
convention.

From Xerox, back when they built mainframes I picked up ! = bang.

--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com

Responsible Development is the style of development I aspire to now. It can be summarized by answering the question, “How would I develop if it were my money?” I’m amazed how many theoretical arguments evaporate when faced with this question.
~ Kent Beck (born: 1961 age: 49) , evangelist for extreme programming.

 

[Roedy Green]

I've always pronounced it "lin" (as in "linen"), which frequently
results in me going back and having to say natural log.

From my university years, "log" meant "ln" in most classes. In the
theoretical stuff I was studying nobody ever used base ten logs so
there was no need to discriminate.

As I recall, the engineers pronounced "ln" as if there were almost no
vowel, with a short nondescript vowel like the French oeu in oef.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com

Responsible Development is the style of development I aspire to now. It can be summarized by answering the question, “How would I develop if it were my money?” I’m amazed how many theoretical arguments evaporate when faced with this question.
~ Kent Beck (born: 1961 age: 49) , evangelist for extreme programming.

 

[BGB / cr88192]

I watch the language evolving with pronunciations drifting ever
further from the phonetics.

well, it allows the spoken language to develop...

in a way, this is one way in which I am against "spelling reform", since
after all, one would have to determine whos particular dialect was
sufficiently cannonical as to use them as the basis for the new word
spellings, or worse-yet, end up with a teh-crapload of spellings for the
same words, essentially making basic literacy a much larger problem.

granted, a severe split in the lexical and phonetic languages would not be
particularly desirable either, since the words do have some value as
phonetic hints.


<snip, list of examples>

ever been to East-Asia?...
one can go there and hear the ways English is often used...

as well, one may get used to reading some amount of "Engrish", to such an
extent that it no longer looks particularly invalid or confusing...

"fire box is the set open, welcome to foods", or similar...

 

[Martin Gregorie]

ee-rack´ for Iraq. key-yids instead of kids.

Shirley that should be pronounciated "ee-rark".

The one that really gets my goat is grammar rather than pronunciation:
referring to "the England team" rather than "the English team". Its
sportspeak and I've been quite horrified at its spread from yobbo
football supporters right throughout football fandom, which seems to
include almost everybody these days.

BTW, if you want some deep immersion in bent pronunciation, get hold of
Richard Lupoff's "Space War Blues". Like "A Clockwork Orange" and Ian M
Banks' "Feersum Endjinn" the text is often hard to read due to apparently
perverse spelling, but read it aloud and suddenly you're talking like a
native of N'Alabama, furshoe.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

FORTH is the only langugage I can recall that specified the
pronunciation of everything. Back then programmers collaborated over the
telephone much more frequently.

I still mentally distinguish ' = tick and " = quote, a FORTH convention.

From Xerox, back when they built mainframes I picked up ! = bang.

Back in the days of ICL 1900 mainframes and the George 3 OS our usage
was ! = shriek.

George 3 provided a stack of workfiles as part of the macro (=script)
environment. We referred to the stack as "shriekfiles". The top of the
stack was "shriek zero", written !0

As a different example, calling ` backtick is still fairly common Unixese.

 

[Tom Anderson]

From my university years, "log" meant "ln" in most classes. In the
theoretical stuff I was studying nobody ever used base ten logs so
there was no need to discriminate.

As I recall, the engineers pronounced "ln" as if there were almost no
vowel, with a short nondescript vowel like the French oeu in oef.

Or like the e in 'taken' - that's called a schwa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa

tom

 

[BGB / cr88192]

Or like the e in 'taken' - that's called a schwa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa

odd...

in my case it is more like /teIkEn/ (tay-ken), or maybe /teIkIn/ (tay-kin).

 

[Martin Gregorie]

in a way, this is one way in which I am against "spelling reform", since
after all, one would have to determine whos particular dialect was
sufficiently cannonical as to use them as the basis for the new word
spellings, or worse-yet, end up with a teh-crapload of spellings for the
same words, essentially making basic literacy a much larger problem.

IIRC it took quite some time for standard English spelling to appear. I
believe this also caused literacy to take a great leap forward.

Remember, too, when arguing with confused people who want to 'reform
English' that the other two major written languages (Arabic and Chinese
pinyin) both adhere to the same written forms with the huge benefit that
any literate person can read stuff written by any other literate person
and, in the case of Arabic anyway, the writer can have been alive anytime
in a rather long period. Against this I bet none of us English speakers
can read anything much before standardisation took place (Chaucer,
anybody?) and same goes for the Chinese and the much more recent pinyin
standardisation.

granted, a severe split in the lexical and phonetic languages would not
be particularly desirable either, since the words do have some value as
phonetic hints.

If you go that way you're likely to end up chasing fleeting trends or
playing wackamole with neologisms like the Academie Francais.

ever been to East-Asia?...
one can go there and hear the ways English is often used...

Yes, though not for a while. However the spelling is standard, so its
relatively easy to figure out what a sign means.

One of the problems here is that the schools went off syllabic English
teaching method in favour of only teaching whole word recognition. As
usual, some prat in power had a brainwave and imposed it on the country
without checking that it actually worked, let alone seeing if it was any
better than the existing method.

The result is a disaster: half the kids can't read and the rest can't
handle words they've never seen before because they don't know what a
syllable is. This prevents them from working out the meaning by
decomposition. It also means they haven't a clue how to say the word.

 

[Joshua Cranmer]

IIRC it took quite some time for standard English spelling to appear. I
believe this also caused literacy to take a great leap forward.

I seem to recall being told that one reason for English's poor
orthography was due to literacy spreading before a standardized
spellings appeared. According to Wikipedia, the first English
dictionaries would have been made around the mid-1700s (Webster's
dictionary, which more or less standardized American English was in
1828). The printing press was well before that.

Another major reason for our poor orthography is our love of
incorporating words from myriads of languages. Often without bothering
to change the spelling to match other words.

Against this I bet none of us English speakers
can read anything much before standardisation took place (Chaucer,
anybody?) and same goes for the Chinese and the much more recent pinyin
standardisation.

Chaucer is actually Middle English, which is generally considered a
different language from Modern English. Shakespearean times is where you
would go to look for pre-standardized Modern English spellings.

One of the problems here is that the schools went off syllabic English
teaching method in favour of only teaching whole word recognition. As
usual, some prat in power had a brainwave and imposed it on the country
without checking that it actually worked, let alone seeing if it was any
better than the existing method.

I probably learned to read mostly using Hooked on Phonics [1].
Interestingly enough, I do remember having problems pronouncing some
words (protein and alcohol were two annoying ones for me), although I
tend to be a good speller. Unless I stare at words for a long time, in
which case everything looks awkward. Oh, and I have problems with
"occasionally" for some reason.

I don't have any experience with whole-word recognition, so I can't say
how it compares to phonics. Pretty much half the Wikipedia page on the
subject is labeled citation-needed, so that's not a useful reference either.

[1] I only recall "a, e, i, o, u are vowels... and sometimes y" from
that stuff, and memories of my life from elementary school and earlier
are rather vague. My parents aren't much help on the matter, either, as
their first recollection that I could read was when I asked about a
"guy-ant pa-harr-ma-key." I'll let you figure out what words I was
trying to pronounce.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

I seem to recall being told that one reason for English's poor
orthography was due to literacy spreading before a standardized
spellings appeared.

It appears that the first dictionary that gave word meanings was John
Florios, in 1598, but Samuel Johnson's (1755) effort. Also swiped from
Wikipedia. I knew about the HJohnson one but not its publication date.

The printing press was well before that.

Came to the UK with William Caxton, 1476.

Chaucer is actually Middle English, which is generally considered a
different language from Modern English. Shakespearean times is where you
would go to look for pre-standardized Modern English spellings.

Point.
Phonics! Thats the word I was looking for.

And the stupid word recognition system is called the "whole language"
reading method.

I know its not just me throwing rocks at it: my cousin was a primary
teacher for many years. 'Primary' is a NZ term for teaching 5-10 YO kids,
so he is necessarily an expert on teaching reading skills. He spits tacks
when 'whole language' reading in mentioned.

In 2007 my cousin sent me a good article, actually an obituary, that
deals with this topic. This kicked off the discussion we had about it.
The following link points at our discussion in case you're interested to
see it. The top link in it references the obit.

http://www.gregorie.org/temp/phonics.html

Unless I stare at words for a long time, in
which case everything looks awkward. Oh, and I have problems with
"occasionally" for some reason.

I think we all do that.

"guy-ant pa-harr-ma-key." I'll let you figure out what words I was
trying to pronounce.

You couldn't do that without phonics. I get 'giant pharmacy'. Close?

 

[Tom Anderson]

The one that really gets my goat is grammar rather than pronunciation:
referring to "the England team" rather than "the English team". Its
sportspeak and I've been quite horrified at its spread from yobbo
football supporters right throughout football fandom, which seems to
include almost everybody these days.

I'll mention that to the guys in the New York office.

tom

 

[Andreas Leitgeb]

Without the r, it's something like 'ka', like a cat without a t, which is
perfectly pronouncable. But with the r, it's something like 'karr', and
your tongue ends up halfway back in your mouth, poised to do something
else, but with nothing else to do.

My pronunciation of "char" is more like "jar" or as in "charcoal" while
"character" still phonetically starts with a "k".

Those who pronounce "char" with "k" could define some variable "amba"
just for the chuckles (or "wtf"s) of later maintainers

 

[Tom Anderson]

In England it would be "Maths.sin" anyway, even before issues of
pronunciation were addressed.

Trig.sin, probably. nd you'd have Trig.hav and Trig.exsec, naturally.

tom

 

[Jim Janney]

...with an Indian accent by analogy with "dhoti".

Its not really a fair example since it was concocted specifically to
highlight inconsistencies between the way English is written and spoken.

Though the rough cough ploughed him through.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

Though the rough cough ploughed him through.

"Through the rough he ploughed, coughing"

This is the version I remember being shown as an example of a sentence
that makes sense but gives non-native English speakers fits.

 

[Lew]

"Through the rough he ploughed, coughing"

This is the version I remember being shown as an example of a sentence
that makes sense but gives non-native English speakers fits.

"... and hiccoughing."