All-Star Grammar Thread - Have At It

[ErinS]

Like "an hour "

 

[Mamarazzi]

Lies. I read acronyms as if they are the full words. I could be wrong, and that's OK, but I'll probably remain wrong forever, then.
And I live you too JAM.

'"An" historical' something bugs me too.

 

[Official OWECheer]

Taking AN SAT or AN SOL test.

No.

You take A Scholastic Aptitude Test or A Standards of Learning test.

But consider the phonetics. SAT is prounced 'ESS-AY-TEE'. 'ESS' begins with a vowel.

 

[JMW]

But it would be AN SAT because when called by the acronym, "S" starts phonetically with a vowel sound "Ess-" (short e)

Unless you just don't like using the acronym... :p

I agree. Just like you get 'an F' in grammar, not 'a F'. ;-)

Eta: general you, not you personally.

 

[Eyes On The Prize]

But if we say "the SAT" instead of "a/an SAT" this whole thing can be avoided :P

 

[kristenthegreat]

But if we say "the SAT" instead of "a/an SAT" this whole thing can be avoided :p

That's what I was gonna say!

 

[cheernerd5678]

But if we say "the SAT" instead of "a/an SAT" this whole thing can be avoided :P

That's what I was thinking... I've never heard someone say "an sat" in my life. It's always the day or the act

 

[emma_tuttle]

But if we say "the SAT" instead of "a/an SAT" this whole thing can be avoided :P

But then there's "th-ee" vs. "th-uh"

 

[CheerBank]

That's what I was thinking... I've never heard someone say "an sat" in my life. It's always the day or the act

My oldest has an SAT subject test on the 11th. ;)

 

[JMW]

But then there's "th-ee" vs. "th-uh"

True...but I don't think either of those pronunciations is ever "wrong" per se. They just have slightly different connotations. (Right?)

 

[TheVipersMom]

Eta: it's gone now... If you seen it great! If not sorry lol

 

[Emily]

And then there is this :p

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, booty, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

 

[emma_tuttle]

True...but I don't think either of those pronunciations is ever "wrong" per se. They just have slightly different connotations. (Right?)

I'm not sure. I just always used "ee" with vowels and "uh" with consonants.
"There is the(ee) apple in the(uh) tree"

 

[Ren]

My niece calls me Erin and my younger sister Teryn (our names ) but if she's speaking to some one about us she always differentiates us as "Aunt" (awwnt) and "Auntie" (awwntie). I'm always Aunt Erin and Teryn is always Auntie Teryn. I'm never Auntie. We don't know why she does it, but she's done it that way since she was at least 2.

I have nieces and nephews in Texas that I'm not close to....but they call me "Ant" Erin and I'm always like no really Erin is fine.

I just hate being called anything but Erin....I'm pretty sure my kids will call me Erin.

If it was my reasoning then as Aunt Teryn sounds the same as Aunt Erin (wait, does it? I've never thought about how Teryn would be pronounced), I'd need some other way to differentiate. But I guess a 2-year-old might not think like that :P

 

[ErinS]

If it was my reasoning then as Aunt Teryn sounds the same as Aunt Erin (wait, does it? I've never thought about how Teryn would be pronounced), I'd need some other way to differentiate. But I guess a 2-year-old might not think like that :P

It's pronounced
like Erin with a T.... Tear-in kind of. Like the actress Taryn Manning but with an E instead of an A

My parents combined my name with my older sister's name (a portmanteau?) because they said that we could name her and I insisted that they name her "Erin"....so they was the compromise