These following words are pronounced differently in Britain than in America.
Military
cemetery
dictionary
planetary
cometary
library
In American the -ary is pronounced the same as the -ary in ''scary''. In Britain the -ary is pronounced ''ree''. Britons pronounce these words totally different from the Americans and they always call the Americans lazy. Isn't it funny that the Britons always say that the Americans are lazy while they pronounce these word lazily compared to the way Americans pronounce them? Britons need to think before they start calling the Americans lazy. It's nonsense.
Americans are lazy because they say "color" rather than "colour"; "honor" rather than "honour"; "armor" rather than "armour."
And most Brits pronounce those words that you listed as similar to the -ary in "scary". We say "military" and pronounce the -ary. We don't say "militree". We say the -ary in "planetary." We say the -ary in "dictionary." So we don't pronounce them all as "ree".
Well, Americans pronounce them all as the ''ary'' in ''scary''. Not some, but all.
We still say "elementary" with a "tree" on the end, though.
''El-uh-men-terry'' doesn't that sound funny.
Yeah, we don't say it [el..m..nteri:] We say [el..mentri:]
My dad says elementary with "ary" at the end. We attributed this to his living in Maine when he was a kid. He's the only one that I've ever heard pronounce it that way, though.
And that ''ary'' rhymes with ''scary'', does it?
Yes, it does. We like to make fun of him.
IN-VEN-TO-RY = IN-VEN-TREE
CON-TRO-VER-SY = CON-TROV-ER-SEE
It´s not about laziness. It´s dialectal.
as for me: eh-le-men-tree, es-ta-tion-ree, dik-shuhn-ree, cuhn-TROV-er-see, in-ven-tree, mil-i-tree.
I guess Americans decided at some point that drawing out "elementary" to five syllables made just too long of a word, but didn't have a problem drawing out the syllables to the other words.
Well, now comes the question. Did Americans really add another syllable to these words or did Britons take one of the syllables out. The spellings of these words seems to suggest the latter because, if ''military'' were originally meant to be pronounced ''mil-uh-tree'' then why is it spelled ''military''? Why weren't these words spelled ''militry'', ''cemetry'', ''libry'', ''dictionry'' etc. If ''military'' were original meant to be pronounced ''mil-i-tree'' then why did they spell the word that long when ''militry'' would have worked. Now, Whether the Americans added or the Britons took away one of the syllables in these word, no one knows.
Adam says ''Americans are lazy because they say "color" rather than "colour"; "honor" rather than "honour"; "armor" rather than "armour."'', Well, I can equally say that Britons are lazy because they spell it ''connexion'' instead of ''connection''.