Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!apple!sun-barr!ames!uhccux!lee
From: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Pronunciations (was: And how do you pronounce "csh"?)
Message-ID: <5267@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 28 Oct 89 15:38:15 GMT
References: <2556@munnari.oz.au>
Organization: University of Hawaii
Lines: 27

From article <2556@munnari.oz.au>, by ok@cs.mu.oz.au (Richard O'Keefe):
" ...  (The first syllable of "character" does __not__ sound like "care".)

That's true for some English dialects but false for many others.
In my speech, the first syllable of "character" is "char-" and
does sound exactly like "care".

" It's worth pointing out that most of the abbreviated keywords in C ('char'
" is not a UNIX command, it's a C keyword) are not the first syllables of
" their words or not a whole number of syllables of their words.
" 	cha-rac-ter
" 	struc-ture
" 	in-te-ger
"   (type)de-fine
" 	ex-ter-nal
" 	e-nu-mer-ate
" 	con-stant

Except for the case of "de-fine", I believe that these observations
are all incorrect for most varieties of American English.  The
evidence is indirect for most of the cases and would take a while
to discuss, but for the first one, note that "r" is pronounced
with lip-rounding when it is at the beginning of a syllable,
without rounding when it is at the end (most Am. dialects),
and in "character" the first "r" is not rounded.

			Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu