Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 September 28

= September 28 =

Decatur
How is it pronounced? Is it "dee-KAY-tur", or "DEH-koh-tur", or something else? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:F88D:DE34:7772:8E5B (talk) 03:02, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * See here for the most common pronunciation, though be aware that there are dozens of places and people with said name, and many of them may be different than that specific pronunciation. -- Jayron 32 03:17, 28 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The one in Illinois is pronounced "dee-KAY-tur". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:19, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the clip Jayron posted sounds very native IL to my ear (lived next door for several years). Decatur, IL is also featured in this Sufjan Stevens song, which describes the area. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:28, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I hope, for his nostrils' sake, that he didn't live on the far east side of town. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:29, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Are these songs sung in Jamaican Patois or Jamaican English?
"Tukka Yoot's Riddim" and "Eleven Long Years" by Us3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoZmm5ukxpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyFaYVW6wb0 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.18.56.232 (talk) 16:07, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * There's a dialect continuum between Jamaican Patois and Jamaican English, as noted in the Wikipedia article titled Jamaican English, to wit "...the distinction between the two is best described as a continuum rather than a solid line..." -- Jayron 32 22:39, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

How do you pronounce 'Trachyandra'?
Google has been of little avail. Cheers Vranak (talk) 22:53, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * This was the very first link in Google when I typed your question in verbatim. -- Jayron 32 23:01, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah I heard that too but I don't think it's right. I did some more thinking and maybe it's trey-key-andra. Vranak (talk) 23:48, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * How is that different from the recording in Jayron32's link? And how do you imagine that it's possible to determine the pronunciation of a word by thinking about it?  CodeTalker (talk) 01:30, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Do Brits say PAY-kee-derms? Pah-kee-an-druh would be the educated American's first guess, with the first two /a/s being the cat vowel. μηδείς (talk) 02:46, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

The OED Online has no entry for Trachyandra, but there's a "did you mean?" link suggesting Pachysandra, which is also a genus name in scientific Latin. For this they give the pronunciation as "Brit. /ˌpakᵻˈsandrə/, U.S. /ˌpækəˈsændrə/". It seems fair to assume that Trachyandra would use the same sounds with the obvious changes, i.e. British "trahkee-AHND-ruh", American "tracky-AND-ruh". --69.159.61.230 (talk) 05:08, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * We might (in some parts of the country) say "bahth" for "bath" and "lahst" for "last", but in general Brits do not say "ah" for "a" in words such as this. The OED pronunciation syntax is different from IPA used in Wikipedia, which would be, with /æ/ being about as short an "a" as you can manage. Bazza (talk) 10:45, 29 September 2016 (UTC)


 * IPA /ˈtrei.kiˈæn.drə/ —Stephen (talk) 05:21, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * You need to qualify that with "en-us". I would have chosen . Bazza (talk) 10:06, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Cheers guys. Vranak (talk) 16:25, 29 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I've never encountered the word before, but I immediately read it as /ˈtrei.kiˈæn.drə/. I think it's an example of trisyllabic laxing. --ColinFine (talk) 08:24, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I quizzed my parents separately, both Americans, and both said /trækiˈændrə/, with my mother giving /pækiːˈsændrə/ as the template for her reading. This notion that the first vowel rhymes with play in the US but not the UK is either false or the total reverse of the truth. μηδείς (talk) 23:57, 1 October 2016 (UTC)