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You can change the spelling of one word in the English language to match how they are pronounced. What word do you pick? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

395 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm picking "Colonel" needs to be respelled to match how it's pronounced.

Try to pick a word no one else has picked. What word are you respelling?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

How do you pronounce it? I had some American tourists ask me for directions to the "kway" before. Only time I've ever heard a different pronunciation.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I've always heard it pronounced kway... Is that wrong?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I can't say really. Where I live (Ireland) it's definitely pronounced "kee" but where you live "kway" might be correct. Fascinating stuff!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's wrong, even in the US.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's pronounced kway in a Pavement song.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

It's pronounced "kaye" in a Pogues song, but songs aren't a good indication of pronunciation...poetic license reigns.

Hell, "reigns" is another candidate word.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

In my dictionary spelling is [ki:] so like "kee"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Quay is one of those words like bowline or boatswain that's commonly mispronounced because people see it in writing without hearing it said. Bowline "properly" rhymes with pin, and boatswain sounds like bosun.

A similar thing happened to solder in Britain, where it originally had a silent l as a nod to its Latin etymology, but some people started pronouncing it.