I pronounce "Aunt" with the 'au' sound between the 'o' in 'frosted' (with that "aw" or "ah" sort of sound.) I live in California but I picked it up out of nowhere. I said it this way since the 2nd grade to destinguish "ant" and "aunt" when I speak. (Plus I hated the @ sound in 'ant' and I still do.) People never questioned me ever when I say it that way (So, hey, they understand me!)
For antimoon, I say an-tee-MOON. I kept thinking back and forth to "antee-moon and antai-moon but I stuck with "antee-moon" since I never though to ask how to say it...Buuuut, I never said it in public so what does it matter? AND people understand both pronunciations on "Antimoon" anyway.
ramble, ramble [3 days later...]
...I do that too... Not the antimoon thing, though, cuz I say only "anteemoon," but I pronounce 'aunt' the same way as you...
Ryan,
So you pronounce it [@n tai 'mu:n] or ['@n tai mu:n]? (I suspect that I put the stress on the wrong syllable in my above post.)
BTW, how do you pronounce the "anti-" in words like antibody, antisocial, antivirus, and anticlockwise?
The stress is on the second syllable. For antibody, I pronounce it @n ti: because I do not separate the anti from the body. That's how I learned it in science class. But for the other words it is an tai', especially in antisocial, a word I use to describe myself a lot. I've never heard anyone say an ti: for antisocial before.
Ryan
Tom could you finally explain US : wat does it mean antimoon?
I pronounce the word like I write it a(stress)nti muu(stress)n. lol
From another American's perspective: I pronounce antibody, antivirus, and antimoon with an '@n ti: (stress on the first syllable). "Antisocial" I alternate between '@n ti: and '@n tai (don't know why). "Anticlockwise" is a word I never use (instead, "counter-clockwise"), but if I did I would probably say '@n ti:.
Yeah I catch myself using both. For antimoon I use the long "i" sound. For words like "antibody" or "antivirus" I use the "ee" sound.
[ ´antee-moon ]
I don´t know about you, but I agree with Simon, "aunt/y" could never be like "anti".
Perhaps "aunt" = [´ont] and "ant" = [ant ;]
The use of the long i by the americans often confuse me. I have a much greater contact with them than with any brit, so sometimes I pronounce anti as [´an-tai].
I suppose this strong/weak i trouble is much like when one says ´civilization´. One might pronounce it [ siv-li-´zei-shan] or [ siv-´lai-zei-shn] like me.
I believe the americans do not insert a shwa in the second syllable (li) and actually pronounce it. I eat it up ( almost ).
It's a 5-syllable word. siv-uh-li-zay-shuhn.
Ryan
Ryan: thank you for your dictionary [´dik-shn-ry] insight. I was being phonetic ;)
dic-tion-ar-y
BTW, most of the time I would write civilisation ( sation not zation )
Well, Chloe, how do you pronounce "aunty"?
Also, how is your name pronounced? I know Chloe is a very common name in Britain and I've seen it a lot but I've never heard it pronounced.
I pronouce aunty like ant-eee I do realise that, that is the wrong way to say it but at first glance that is how I would think it was said I dont know if its just my Mancunian accent. You pronounce chloe as Yap said.