this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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Showerthoughts

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'Choose' rhymes with 'lose'? I mean c'mon, someone did that shit on purpose πŸ‘€

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (3 children)

The bigger problem is that lose should rhyme with pose or close. Loose is fine.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Don't get me started on ough and ead.

The lead soldier kneaded dough in the bough brush while they read the book that they previously read while taking a furlough in the rough.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago

I read this and all I could think of was "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago (4 children)

Hoes drop their clothes.

Who the hell decided that close is pronounced the same as clothes?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago

They sound pretty close to me. We can close this issue.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Okay as a non-native speaker who struggles with consonant clusters this is both the best and worst thing I learned today.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Hey we may have our language rules pulled from 30 different other languages and applied seemingly at random, but at least we don't have to memorize the gender of every inanimate object in the world!

I've taken 5 years of German and self studied some Russian and Spanish, and goddamn that gendered noun shit is really, really hard for native English speakers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

As a native English speaker, English is freaking weird like that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (2 children)

No one? They aren't pronounced the same in any accent that I'm aware of.

Edit: I'm dumb. I was reading that as the "nearby" close and not the "shut " close.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

I don't know shit about fuck when it comes to the differences between accents/dialects but it's at least enough of a thing to be there in dictionaries.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

You're probably thinking of the pronunciation of close as in 'close to you'

I was thinking of the pronunciation of close as in 'close the door'

Which is pronounced the same as clothes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Those still aren’t pronounced the same. The th in clothes isn’t silent.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Huh? I have lived in every corner and the middle of the United States and I have never heard anyone pronounce the TH in clothes no matter the accent. It always sounds like close as in to close the door.

Unless you are thinking of cloths, as in a pile of wash cloths.

English kinda sucks sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

I'm not sure where you're from, but the th is indeed silent in my area regarding the word 'clothes'. I've never heard it pronounced any different than 'close'.

Now if it's said as 'clothing', the th is indeed pronounced. But not for 'clothes'. And I've worked at a clothing store before.

You might be thinking of the word 'cloths', which indeed does pronounce the th.

English is weird like that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago (3 children)

I'm not sure where you're from, but the th is indeed silent in my area regarding the word 'clothes'. I've never heard it pronounced any different than 'close'.

I'm not sure where you're from, the th in is always pronounced in my area regarding the word 'clothes'. I've never heard it pronounced the same as 'close'

I will say that people got called out for pronouncing it the same as the spice 'cloves'.

FWIW My area = rural southern UK.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 45 minutes ago

I'm in the US and I pronounce it, I think a lot of people do? Maybe I just know a lot of snobs and "regular" Americans mush the word together but I don't think so

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Oh well that's easy then, it's because you guys speak British, not English!

Kidding aside, I lived in East Anglia for a few years as a kid and I don't remember the British kids saying it that way either, but that was a really long time ago and my memory ain't what it used to be! I think. I can't remember how it used to be actually.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

it's because you guys speak British, not English!

Fighting talk, sirrah! Fighting talk.... But yes, I guess.

British English has been described as three languages dressed up in a trenchcoat that go around mugging other languages in dark alleys and stealing the best bits...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

You seem like the sort of person that would pronounce the word often with a hard T, yet still pronounce the letter A as if it was an O.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

You seem like the sort of person that would pronounce the word often with a hard T,

Not at all. Used to make fun of people who did.

yet still pronounce the letter A as if it was an O.

No - there are two sounds for A, bath (short, as in cat) for tub of usually hot water and Bath (long, as in car) for the city famous for its hot water. Never heard it like O - no, wait... RP has an O sounding A doesn't it? Lloyd Grossman was famous for his mangling of vowel sounds.

ETA that distinction for the A sound is probably familial rather than regional; grew up with Geordie mam and Home counties dad.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Yeh cheese as cheeze is an odd one - especially considering the z is "zed" not "zee"... I guess cheese is where the idea of "zee" came from?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Additional question..

Who decided to include the letter D in the pronunciation of the letter Z?

Zed?

Where did that come from? We don't say it that way over here in the states, we just say zee..

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I would ask "why did you left ponders choose to change the pronunciation to zee?" - though given many USAian pronunciations are, apparently, closer to Elizabethan English than the current UK sounds I wouldn't like to guess which came first the zed or the zee....

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Probably because D has absolutely nothing to do with Z.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

I don't know that they sound that different, but I definitely "pronounce" them differently in that my tongue is in a different party of my mouth for both of them. When I say clothes, my tongue is near touching my front teeth, where as close is more just below that ridge behind my teeth, so farther back.

I'm from the center of the U.S. for reference.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I had half my jaw ripped open when I was 16 or so. So I guess I'm lucky to pronounce or enunciate anything correctly these days.

Southern Mississippi, if that means squat.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Yeah Mississippi will do that to you.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

they are very different in my mind. perhaps because i first came across them in their respective contexts through reading.

even when speaking, to me, lose rhymes with booze and loose rhymes with goose.

this has never been a problem for me, personally.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

And here's me, another non-native speaker, just learning that booze doesn't rhyme with goose.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

oh, no, no, no! booze and a goose should never go together!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago

They didn't, except among the ignorant and autocorrect.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

What about the words that are only different in tone.

Content and content

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

It is read like lead, not read like lead.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

There's ~~too~~ ~~to~~ two different ways to pronounce and spell many words.

Fuck, that's three!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Steady up over ~~their~~ ~~they're~~ there.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

Don't phuck with my head, I'm two drunk!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 hours ago

Trust me, it is equally frustrating for most Americans...or almost, anyway.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

If we start now, we can probably switch the pronunciations of Aristotle and chipotle within a generation.

Chip-ot-el

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

Okay TIL that these aren't pronounced the same.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

Looser wearing lose clothing?

πŸ€”

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Obviously the plural of foot is feet, so the plural of book should be beek.

Or one sheep should be a shoop.

There's also the English Vowel Shift. Which means words either side of it are inconsistent.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Only online and since I hear the words I read it is really fucking annoying.