February

Take (febyoo-erE), drop the second (e) and you get (febyoo-rE). Convert this to Tom's ASCII alphabet and you get /febju:ri(:)/. This is how I pronounce it.

http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-ascii.htm

Where's the justification in dropping the second (e)? Consider the words "military", "dictionary", "secretary", etc. These are regularly pronopunced as if they were spelt "militry", "dictionry", "secretry", etc. by many (most/all) non-North American native speakers of English. "February" and "January" are no different.

Perhaps those who censure /febju:(e)ri(:)/ because it doesn't reflect the spelling of the word had better consider pronouncing the "l" in "walk", "would", "calm", etc.; the "b" in "doubt", "debt", etc.; the "g" in "gnostic", "gnu", "gnome", "sign", "paradigm", "foreign", etc.; the "ch" in "yacht", etc.; the "gh" in "night", "cough", "bough", etc.; the "k" in "knife", "knew", etc.; the "t" in "wrestle", "castle", whistle", etc.; the "w" in "wrong", "wrist", "wrest", etc; the "c" in "muscle", etc.; etc.

There are silent letters in English. Which letters are silent and which are not can depend on your dialect. It's not a mark of laziness to have silent letters. It call it laziness shows a lack of understanding of basic linguistics.

''the "b" in "doubt", "debt", etc.''

Jim, those letters aren't supposed to be pronounced because they were just thrown in by some strange etymologists. No one pronounces the ''b'' in ''doubt'' and ''debt'' and nor were those two words ever pronounced with the ''b''.

''Where's the justification in dropping the second (e)? Consider the words "military", "dictionary", "secretary", etc. These are regularly pronopunced as if they were spelt "militry", "dictionry", "secretry", etc. by many (most/all) non-North American native speakers of English. "February" and "January" are no different.''

In Scotland it's different. We tend to pronounce the ''a'' in ''dictionary'', ''February'', ''January'' etc. like the ''a'' in ''Mary''. So, ''militry'' does not apply to all non-North American accents.

''the "l" in "walk", "would", "calm"''

Some people do pronounce the ''l'' in ''calm''.

Jim, people who pronounce ''dictionary'' as ''dictionry'' (the Englishmen, Australians, New Zealanders, Africans etc.) are being lazy. ''Dic-tion-ary'' is the correct pronunciation. If ''dictionry'' is an okay pronunciation then why does the spelling favour the pronunciation ''dic-tion-ary'' over ''dic-tion-ry''?

I agree with Jim. English have a habit of shortening words, this might be due to English vowels beng longer than in most other languages.

I have a question, Is there any accent that pronounces the word ''jewellery'' as it's spelt. i.e. ''jew-uhl-er-ee''?

>>Jim, people who pronounce ''dictionary'' as ''dictionry'' (the Englishmen, Australians, New Zealanders, Africans etc.) are being lazy.<<

Knob,
Americans are lazy at spelling words, like leaving out the 'u' in "color" and writing "nite" for "night". If they weren't so lazy they wouldn't be so overweight.

Another Knob, I'm not an American and I do spell ''colour'' with a ''u''. I'm from Scotland.

Scots are lazy too. All they do is play in their skirts, blow the bagpipe and eat oatmeal.

''Knob,
Americans are lazy at spelling words, like leaving out the 'u' in "color" and writing "nite" for "night". If they weren't so lazy they wouldn't be so overweight.''

You're right, Americans are lazy for spelling ''colour'' as ''color'' and writing ''nite'' for ''night''. In Sydney, Australia we always include that ''u'' in the word ''colour''.

Another Knob and Jim, The spelling ''nite'' for ''night'' is a very informal spelling. It's used sometimes in informal writing. It is also used on receipts in the grocery store as an abbreviation. ''Nite'' for ''night'' would not be accepted on a job application or anything like that anywhere.

Quote-''''Where's the justification in dropping the second (e)? Consider the words "military", "dictionary", "secretary", etc. These are regularly pronopunced as if they were spelt "militry", "dictionry", "secretry", etc. by many (most/all) non-North American native speakers of English. "February" and "January" are no different.''

Jim, you've got that wrong when you say that all Non-North Americans pronounce ''military'', dictionary etc. as if they were spelt militry, dictionry etc. Here in Northern England both pronunciations are heard. I say ''mil-uh-tary''.

The post at 1:46am GMT Thursday on the 9th of December 2004 was not mine. I've never said that Americans were lazy for the way they spell (or misspell if you want to be a bigot).

Note what I wrote: "... by many (most/all) non-North American native speakers ..." The reason for putting "most/all" in parenthises is that I wasn't cretain of this. However it is definitely true for many of us. I'd be willing to put bets on it's being true for most of us. I never claimed that it was true for all of us.