The Request Line

chelster You're most welcome! And thanks -- happy to oblige. Keep those requests coming. Jun 21, 2011

pterodactyl I want to thank Mr. Helster, and Wordnik, for providing this service. I love being able to get pronunciations on demand, and I'm amazed that we get this service for free. Thank you! I really appreciate it! Jun 21, 2011

ruzuzu Taht exmaple is teh alsome, moullsque. Jan 12, 2011

mollusque Czech out the Herzog example under hrad. Jan 12, 2011

ruzuzu Oh! Chelster added a note and a pronunciation to quay.

*is thoroughly amused* Jan 12, 2011

ruzuzu *is sad that nobody noticed attempt to stir the pot by listing quay, but consoles self by giggling about yarb's fortress.* Jan 12, 2011

yarb I suppose the reason KWAY-sy makes me so queasy is that in most English words beginning qua- (quag, quality, quadrangle, qualm, etc), the first syllable is pronounced KWAH or KWO. I can think of very few pronounced KWAY where the /a/ is not part of a different phoneme (e.g. quail, quake).

I think it's best for all if I keep my hrad /s/ to myself. Jan 12, 2011

milosrdenstvi hrad is Czech for fortress. Just saying. Jan 12, 2011

bilby Exactly, not slovenly at all, but non-standard. It's completely pointless attaching pejoratives like pretentious to pronunciations, unless the miracle of orthoepiechucking is to magically know a speaker's state of mind/intent vis-a-vis social mobility. Jan 12, 2011

chelster Just as, I suppose, that there's nothing slovenly about saying liberry or nucular if that's what one acquired from one's upbringing. After all, as Merriam-Webster informs us, U.S. presidents and college presidents have pronounced these words that way.

Pronunciations acquired during one's upbringing (mine was in hardscrabble Queens, New York City) are not de facto standard. You may not agree with it or like it, but my job, as an orthoepist, is to discriminate for those who want to be discriminating speakers. Jan 12, 2011

ruzuzu Yeah, yarb really is a hrad /s/. Jan 12, 2011

bilby That's a ridiculous throwaway. There's nothing pretentious about GRAH-tis if it's the way a person acquired the pronunciation during their upbringing.

I'm hoping yarb will demonstrate a hrad /s/ soon but I'm open minded! Jan 12, 2011

chelster Quasimodo is a long-established holdover, no doubt because it's a name and we tend not to mess with the pronunciation of names (which is good). But loanwords tend to get anglicized (which makes sense), and once they have been it is generally inadvisable to re-adopt the foreign pronunciation (for example, the pretentious GRAH-tis for gratis). Again, KWAH-zee and KWAH-see are acceptable pronunciations, but they are de-anglicizations, which is why I said they have little to recommend them.

For what it's worth, the Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation, which gives British and American pronunciations, lists KWAY-zy and KWAH-zee as British, and KWAH-zee and KWAY-zy as American. Jan 12, 2011

yarb I'm not following you, chelster. You seem to be saying:

"Quasi-" - loanword (i.e. directly) from Latin, so we use the English system of pronunciation.

"Quasimodo" - comes directly from Latin, so it's an exception.

In my experience it's simply that KWAY-sy (or -zy) is the American pronunciation, while KWAH-sy is normal in England and Australia (don't know about other Anglophone countries). Jan 11, 2011

chelster As I explain in my Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations, the proper name Quasimodo is an exception. "Because Quasimodo is formed from the first words of the Latin Introit, Quasi modo geniti infantes ("As newborn babes . . ." 1 Pet. 2:2), it is pronounced either like the classical Latin, kwah-si-MOH-doh, or--more often in American speech--like the Italian, kwah-zee-MOH-doh." Jan 11, 2011

yarb Never mind newfangled things like quasars. How about good old quasimodo? Surely he doesn't answer to KWAY-zee-modo? That would be kwazy indeed.

How about plain qua? Jan 11, 2011

chelster A postscript to my previous comment: How do you pronounce the word quasar? Most people say KWAY-zahr, or sometimes KWAY-sahr. Interesting, because the word is formed from quasi and stellar. Jan 11, 2011

chelster KWAY-zee is unattested, milosrdenstvi, so I'd avoid that variant if I were you.

Re KWAH-see and KWAH-zee: I didn't mean to imply that there was something wrong or bad about them; they're common and standard pronunciations. But I think it's fair to ask why one would pronounce a Latin loanword that has been English since the mid-17th century in classical Latin or pseudo-Latin when there are two well-established anglicized pronunciations that dictionaries have listed first and orthoepists have preferred for many years.

I think you will agree, bilby, that it would be strange if we went out of our way to give all our Latin loanwords classical pronunciations. The variants KWAY-zy and KWAY-sy follow the English system of Latin pronunciation, which has long been the standard for anglicizing loanwords. As W. H. P. Phyfe explained it in 18,000 Words Often Mispronounced (1926), "Vowels, when ending accented syllables, have always their long English sounds, as pater (PAY-tur), homo (HOH-moh)."

I choose to follow this rule with quasi- because there is a great deal of lexical authority for doing so, and because, unlike yarb, I like the sound of it. Jan 10, 2011

milosrdenstvi Funny, the pronunciation I've most often heard is "KWAY-zee". Jan 8, 2011

bilby Why does a classical Latin pronunciation for a Latin loanword 'have little to recommend it'? *curious*
I can't recall ever hearing the pronunciation as you have suggested it should be; bits of it in other combinations, yes. Around these parts KWAH-see (or KWAH-zee) fan tutti. Jan 8, 2011

yarb Please! "Quasi-" with an a as in "quake" and an i as in "sigh" not only has little to recommend it, but it makes me retch.

The first vowel should be as in "quad", and the "i" should be short. A hrad /s/ is preferred but I'm open minded. Jan 7, 2011

chelster "Hemi-" and "demi-" should be HEM-ee and DEM-ee. "Quasi" is treated differently because it's a Latin loanword. The /a/ should be long, as in "quake"; the /i/ should be long, as in "sigh"; and the /s/ may be either soft, as in "rose," or hard, as in "case." Older sources generally prefer the hard /s/; most current ones prefer the soft /s/, which is my preference. The classical Latin KWAH-see and the pseudo-Latin KWAH-zee are recognized by dictionaries but have little to recommend them. Jan 7, 2011

bilby How 'bout quasi, the president of Afghanistan? Jan 7, 2011

chelster In cultivated speech, anti-, semi-, and multi- are pronounced like long /e/ in "me," not like long /i/ ("eye"). Orthoepists have endorsed the long /e/ and denounced the long /i/ for a long time. Jan 7, 2011

Prolagus I would recommend that you focus on my pronunciation of the S in casu marzu. Something between the z in "zoo" and the French j. ;-) Sep 30, 2010

Telofy Seconded. Thanks for the guidance with those country names, but especially, thanks for manteion. Throughout seven of Gene Wolfe’s tomes I couldn’t settle on one pronunciation, which made my sub-vocalization stumble every time I hit upon it—and every time was pretty often.

Do you know how American native speakers decide whether to say /ˈæntaɪ/ or /ˈænti/ for the prefix anti- in spontaneously formed compounds? (Similarly for semi-, multi, etc.) Sep 29, 2010

ruzuzu These are fantastic--it's surprisingly difficult for me to avoid adding "Hi ruzuzu" or "bilby is a big, hairy, fat, beachcombing, dreamy, frog-mincing, grumpy-when-tired, brainstem-chewing liar." (Though I wonder whether I could get away with requesting a simple "you are awesome.")

Thank you! Sep 29, 2010