Depends on how your pronounce it. Al-oo-min-e-um or Al-oo-min-um?Aluminum always sounds better
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- Thread starter amirm
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But there's no e or I after the n?
Always wondered why the limeys pronounce it so funny?
because we spell it 'Aluminium'?But there's no e or I after the n?
Always wondered why the limeys pronounce it so funny?
At primary school I got pulled up in a reading test for pronouncing 'Laboratory' as 'Labratory'. I'd only ever heard the word spoken on American television.
What about research? Did you do ree-search in the labratory or ruh-search in the laboratory? Ruh-search seems to have gone the way of looking glass.
I think that's just a lazy tongue shortened pronunciation
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It’s funny, in the U.S., the animal is pronounced by most people as you note above, but when used as a verb (like “to squirrel away”), it is usually pronounced as it is spelled.
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Another one that kills me—when people pronounce “caramel” as “carmull.”
Alice of Old Vincennes
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Client texted yesterday. Said he'd been arrested for a "mistermeaner." Forgot how to spell because last 10 arrests were felonies.
When we (Australians, and probably English) speakers say 'calm' it rhymes with 'car' ... often US speakers make it rhyme with 'coal' which I can barely mange to pronounce (adding the 'm' to that, I mean). Seems to involve rolling then pushing the front of your tongue to the roof of your mouth?
MarkS
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Must have been acting like Mr. Mean ...
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I’ve only heard it pronounced as cahm (like the “ah” in the interjection “ah!”) or as cahlm, which is the same pronunciation as before except with a slight, almost barely pronounced “l.”
RECord is the noun, reCORD the verb, where capitals indicate a stressed syllable.
ENTrance and enTRANCE.
REsearch and reSEARCH.
At least in my experience in England.
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I've been listening to the Decoding The Gurus podcast, the hosts being a Aussie Psychologist and Northern Irish cognitive anthropologist.
The Aussie's accent doesn't seem as pronounced as many I've heard. But listening, especially to the Northern Irish accent, is sort of cognitively draining to my
north American brain. The accent sounds to my ears like a vowel will start normally, but then shoot off in to some unanticipated direction and sling shot around to arrive somewhere else. I have a similar thing listening to Yascha Mounk's podcast, where it's like trying to decode english language that has been thrown in to "tumble dry" in a clothes dryer. Of course that all rests on my own brain's inadequacies, but I do notice the slight cognitive toll, where my brain is constantly slightly re-winding what they are saying to keep up. (Which makes me all the more impressed with immigrants in english speaking countries who do so well talking to native language speakers).
Whenever I think of the Australian accent I think of how my friend's Australian wife pronounces "oh no" when laughing about something - "ooh nooyuuuuuu....."
Heck, that reminds me: I remember a magazine I had once that had various accents written phonetically. Just reading the Australian version was hilarious...the reader sounded straight up Australian!
This "speak in different accents by reading phonetic translations" thing HAS to be a thing somewhere on the internet.
ETA: I knew it would exist:
Aussie Accenterator - How to Sound Australian
A translator that converts American English words into Australian-sounding words
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restorer-john
Grand Contributor
I've been listening to the Decoding The Gurus podcast, the hosts being a Aussie Psychologist and Northern Irish cognitive anthropologist.
The Aussie's accent doesn't seem as pronounced as many I've heard. But listening, especially to the Northern Irish accent, is sort of cognitively draining to my
north American brain. The accent sounds to my ears like a vowel will start normally, but then shoot off in to some unanticipated direction and sling shot around to arrive somewhere else. I have a similar thing listening to Yascha Mounk's podcast, where it's like trying to decode english language that has been thrown in to "tumble dry" in a clothes dryer. Of course that all rests on my own brain's inadequacies, but I do notice the slight cognitive toll, where my brain is constantly slightly re-winding what they are saying to keep up. (Which makes me all the more impressed with immigrants in english speaking countries who do so well talking to native language speakers).
Whenever I think of the Australian accent I think of how my friend's Australian wife pronounces "oh no" when laughing about something - "ooh nooyuuuuuu....."
Heck, that reminds me: I remember a magazine I had once that had various accents written phonetically. Just reading the Australian version was hilarious...the reader sounded straight up Australian!
This "speak in different accents by reading phonetic translations" thing HAS to be a thing somewhere on the internet.
ETA: I knew it would exist:
Aussie Accenterator - How to Sound Australian
A translator that converts American English words into Australian-sounding wordswww.accenterator.com
I wondered how/why this thread came to life again. Yes we certainly roll the 'o' into a 'u' when exclaiming "oh no".
That accenterator is fun. Following along with their "it is written so that if an American reads it, it will sound Australian" involves a double mind-flip for me. They do pick up things I hadn't really thought of like how we often hang onto the plosive 't' for 'to' where US-ians presumably go all the way to things like 'wanna'. I tried "I want to buy some aluminium" to get that.
Edit: no wait, I tried starting with the US spelling and they rendered it pretty well as "Oy wahnt t' buy some alyoominium".
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restorer-john
Grand Contributor
I wondered how/why this thread came to life again. Yes we certainly roll the 'o' into a 'u' when exclaiming "oh no".
That accenterator is fun. Following along with their "it is written so that if an American reads it, it will sound Australian" involves a double mind-flip for me. They do pick up things I hadn't really thought of like how we often hang onto the plosive 't' for 'to' where US-ians presumably go all the way to things like 'wanna'. I tried "I want to buy some aluminium" to get that. But they didn't get how we say the metal right. In that case, and generally 'u' is 'yoo' not just 'oo'.
Edit: no wait, I tried starting with the US spelling and they rendered it pretty well as "Oy wahnt t' buy some alyoominium".
Don't start with Aluminum vs Aluminium!
I laugh everytime I hear Americans say "Aluminum Chassis" How they managed to mess up chassis too is beyond me. It's clearly French. Do Americans call croissants, croyzants?
Don't start with Aluminum vs Aluminium!
I laugh everytime I hear Americans say "Aluminum Chassis" How they managed to mess up chassis too is beyond me. It's clearly French. Do Americans call croissants, croyzants?
Oh god, best not to think about it.
My cuzzy-bro business partner is a kiwi btw, it's hilarious.
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