User:Nardog

You'd be amazed at the number of times I've been with top professors in the field and I've asked them a question and they've said, 'I'm not too sure about that, let me check', and gone straight to Wikipedia.

Misconceptions
"The 'true' IPA is that which describes speech as closely as possible." [I]t must remain a general principle to leave out everything self-evident, and everything that can be explained once for all. This allows us to dispense almost completely with the modifiers, and with a good many other signs, except in scientific works and in introductory explanations. We write English fill and French fil the same way ; yet the English vowel is 'wide' and the French 'narrow', and the English is formed much further back than the French. If we wanted to mark these differences, we should write English, French. But we need not do so: we know, once for all, that English short is always, and French  always ; that English  is always  and French  always.

"There are only two kinds of phonetic transcription: broad (phonemic) and narrow (allophonic)." If the relevant phonological system is known, a transcription can be devised which includes any number of additional symbols to indicate the phonetic realizations of the phonemes. ... Narrowness is regarded as a continuum, so that might be regarded as a slightly narrow (or 'narrowed') transcription, and as very narrow ... the realizational information which is not explicit in a particular allophonic transcription is, in principle, provided by conventions.

"The International Phonetic Alphabet is, at its core, a phonetic alphabet." 1. There should be a separate sign for each distinctive sound; that is, for each sound which, being used instead of another, in the same language, can change the meaning of a word.

2. When any sound is found in several languages, the same sign should be used in all. This applies also to very similar shades of sound. The IPA is designed to be a set of symbols for representing all the possible sounds of the world's languages. The representation of these sounds uses a set of phonetic categories which describe how each sound is made. These categories define a number of natural classes of sounds that operate in phonological rules and historical sound changes. The symbols of the IPA are shorthand ways of indicating certain intersections of these categories. Thus is a shorthand way of designating the intersection of the categories voiceless, bilabial, and plosive; is the intersection of the categories voiced, bilabial, and nasal; and so on. The sounds that are represented by the symbols are primarily those that serve to distinguish one word from another in a language.

"There is 'the IPA for [a language]'." There can be many systems of phonemic transcription for the same variety of a language, all of which conform fully to the principles of the IPA. ... In English, for example, the contrast between the words bead and bid has phonetic correlates in both vowel quality and vowel duration. A phonemic representation which explicitly notes this might use the symbols and ... But it is equally possible unambiguously to represent these phonemes as  and  ..., or as  and  ... All three pairs of symbols are in accord with the principles of the IPA ... The IPA does not provide a phonological analysis for a particular language, let alone a single 'correct' transcription, but rather the resources to express any analysis so that it is widely understood.

"There is one correct way to syllabify English words."

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Pronunciation sources
Dictionaries Video transcripts Generally reliable Not citable but potentially useful Weirdly prescriptive and often inaccurate User-generated junk Google Search within Wikipedia Specialties Places Non-English Lots of others
 * Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (authoritative)
 * Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (authoritative)
 * The Oxford/Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English (generally reliable but these may help)
 * Oxford BBC Guide to Pronunciation
 * OneLook (powerful meta search—but not for new words)
 * A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English (1944; authoritative but outdated)
 * Merriam-Webster (most reliable, comprehensive and up-to-date for AmE; direct descendant of Kenyon & Knott; see Wells 12 Oct '06 for how they compile pronunciations)
 * The Free Dictionary (a good deal of specialized [especially medical] dictionaries)
 * OED/Australian/Canadian/New Zealand Oxford Dictionary (pronunciations are free)
 * Filmot
 * YouGlish
 * TV News Archive
 * C-SPAN
 * VoiceTube
 * PlayPhrase.me
 * Yarn
 * QuoDB
 * Screenocean
 * Say How?
 * The ABC Book
 * Voice of America Pronunciation Guide
 * ABC Pronounce (some respellings appear inconsistent)
 * TeachingBooks Author & Illustrator Pronunciation Guide
 * BBC Pronunciation Unit blog
 * Forvo
 * Behind the Name
 * Forebears (for guessing name origins)
 * The Name Engine
 * NameShouts
 * PronounceItRight
 * Right Pronunciation of Important Names
 * Howjsay, Inogolo, Pronounce Names
 * ,,  ,  , etc.
 * The Biologist's Handbook of Pronunciations (1960)
 * Davis's Drug Guide
 * Drugs.com
 * Taber's Online
 * Merck Manual Pronunciations
 * Pronouncing Dictionary of the Supreme Court of the United States
 * Linguist names
 * Linguistic Typology (authors' names in IPA since 2018)
 * A Guide to the Pronunciation of Canadian Place Names (1959 [1938])
 * Georgia Place-Names (1999 [1975])
 * Idaho Pronunciation Guide
 * Illinois Pronunciation Guide
 * Pronunciation Guide for Illinois Place Names (1957)
 * Michigan.gov Pronunciation Guide
 * A Pronunciation Guide to places in Ohio
 * Texas Almanac Pronunciation Guide
 * Washington Names: A Pronunciation Guide of Washington State Place Names (1964)
 * AP: Minnesota, Montana, Nebraksa, South Dakota, Washington
 * CNRTL
 * Den Danske Ordbog
 * DiPI
 * Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
 * Duden
 * Igbo Names
 * Irish Pronunciation Database
 * Larousse
 * Ordbogen.com
 * Online Scots Dictionary
 * Släktnamn i Norden: med uttalsuppgifter
 * Svenska ortnamn med uttalsuppgifter
 * Svenska språknämndens uttalsordbok
 * Woorden.org
 * YorubaName.com
 * AudioEloquence

The Chaos
"The Chaos" by Gerard Nolst Trenité:

Dearest creature in Creation, Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

It will keep you, Susy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

Tear in eye your dress you'll tear. So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,

Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it?

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!)

Made has not the sound of bade, Say—said, pay—paid, laid, but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you With such words as vague and ague,

But be careful how you speak, Say break, steak, but bleak and streak,

Previous, precious; fuchsia, via; Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,

Cloven, oven; how and low; Script, receipt; shoe, poem, toe,

Hear me say, devoid of trickery: Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,

Typhoid; measles, topsails, aisles; Exiles, similes, reviles;

Wholly, holly; signal, signing; Thames; examining, combining;

Scholar, vicar and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable—admirable from "admire"; Lumber, plumber; bier but brier;

Chatham, brougham; renown but known, Knowledge; done, but gone and tone,

One, anemone; Balmoral; Kitchen, lichen; laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German; wind and mind; Scene, Melpomene, mankind;

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather, Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.

This phonetic labyrinth Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Billet does not end like ballet; Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;

Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet, Which is said to rime with "darky".

Viscous, viscount; load and broad; Toward, to forward, to reward,

And your pronunciation's O.K. When you say correctly croquet;

Rounded, wounded; grieve and sieve; Friend and fiend; alive and live;

Liberty, library; heave and heaven; Rachel, ache, moustache; eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed; People, leopard; towed, but vowed

Mark the difference, moreover, Between mover, plover, Dover,

Leeches, breeches; wise, precise; Chalice but police and lice.

Camel; constable, unstable; Principle, disciple; label;

Petal, penal and canal; Wait, surmise, plait, promise; pal.

Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit Rime with "shirk it" and "beyond it",

But it is not hard to tell, Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular; gaol; iron; Timber, climber; bullion, lion,

Worm and storm; chaise, chaos, chair; Senator, spectator, mayor.

Ivy, privy; famous, clamour And enamour rime with "hammer."

Pussy, hussy and possess. Desert, but dessert, address.

Golf, wolf; countenance; lieutenants Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.

River, rival; tomb, bomb, comb; Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rime with anger, Neither does devour with clangour.

Soul, but foul and gaunt, 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 and gauge; Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.

Query does not rime with very, Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth; Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Though the difference seems little, We say actual, but victual,

Seat, sweat, chaste, caste; Leigh, eight, height; Put, nut; granite, but unite.

Reefer does not rime with "deafer," Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Dull, bull; Geoffrey, George; ate, late; Hint, pint; senate, but sedate;

Scenic, Arabic, pacific; Science, conscience, scientific;

Tour, but our, and succour, four; Gas, alas and Arkansas!

Sea, idea, guinea, area, Psalm; Maria, but malaria;

Youth, south, southern; cleanse and clean; Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion with battalion,

Sally with ally; yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.

Never guess—it is not safe; We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf!

Heron; granary, canary; Crevice, and device, and eyrie;

Face but preface, but efface, Phlegm, phlegmatic; ass, glass, bass;

Large, but target, gin, give, verging; Ought, out, joust and scour, but scourging;

Ear, but earn; and wear and tear Do not rime with "here", but "ere".

Seven is right, but so is even; Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen;

Monkey, donkey; clerk and jerk; Asp, 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 groats?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel, Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict!

Don't you think so, reader, rather, Saying lather, bather, father?

Finally: which rimes with "enough," Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?

Hiccough has the sound of "cup"...... My advice is—give it up!

&#42;) No, you are wrong. This is the plural of "doe".