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Article in the online Guardian today: "8 pronunciation errors that made the English language what it is today"
Rare example of perfection in popular writing about language. Gets everything right, especially in phonetics!
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/11/pronunciation-errors-english-language
Among the pronunciation errors that annoy me most are teat. victual, voila, and harassment. They are NOT supposed to sound like teet, vict-u-oll, voy-la, and harris-mint. They sound like tit, vittle. vwa-lah. and her-ass-meant.
And at this point. I don't know if it's pro-teen or pro-tea-un.
deaconB said: And at this point. I don't know if it's pro-teen or pro-tea-un.
For "protein" I go with "pro-teen" (2 syllables). This avoids confusion with "protean," pronounced as three syllables. It has a totally different meaning, and could be grammatically interchangeable with "protein" in some sentences. For example: That structure in the cell is protean.
It really ticks me off when teachers get that stuff wrong. Sad commentary on the profession, but all too often true. When I was teaching physics, and introduced the periodic table, I had some students saying "That's not how you pronounce 'Mendeleev' ... it's Mendel - leeve." After some investigation, I found that was how the chemistry teacher (who shall remain unnamed) was telling them how to pronounce the name. I hesitated to correct her on such a basic thing, and never did, but fortunately she moved on to another job the next year.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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