How do you pronounce "Comment"?

Johnny   Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:45 am GMT
Why the hell does every dictionary make it rhyme with "meant" while I keep hearing it rhyme with "mint"? How do you pronounce it? Thanks.
tomas   Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:55 am GMT
Because "meant" and "mint" are homonyms, at least for me (USA).
Johnny   Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:57 am GMT
I just thought about it, and I gave myself an answer. From Wikipedia, on the pin-pen merger:

<<Outside the South, the majority of North American English speakers maintain a solid distinction in perception and production, though there are in almost every region of the United States—and even a few places in Canada—a certain number of speakers that perceive the pairs of words as close or pronounce them acoustically closely.>>

I guess a kind of partial merger might be more common than I though. Comments are still welcome of course (and I'd be glad if they rhymed with mints LOL)
Lazar   Sat Feb 07, 2009 2:16 am GMT
I pronounce it with [ɛ] in the second syllable; that's the standard (non pen-pin merged) pronunciation.
T   Sat Feb 07, 2009 2:43 am GMT
Maybe some of the confusion can also come from the fact that some people pronounce the 'meant' in 'comment' with a schwa (unstressed)? 'Comment', along with others such as 'accent', is one of a comparatively few two-syllable words that are typically double accented (major accent on the first, lesser accent on the second - keeps the vowel from turning into a schwa). Some people don't do the second accent, turning 'meant' into 'm-schwa-nt', and this schwa can sound close to the i in a sloppy/quiet mint (all schwas don't sound the same).

Just thinking out loud here.
Johnny   Sat Feb 07, 2009 11:22 am GMT
<<...along with others such as 'accent', is one of a comparatively few two-syllable words that are typically double accented...
...Some people don't do the second accent, turning 'meant' into 'm-schwa-nt'...>>

Yeah! And damn it, I just realized I've always said "accent" as "ak-sint". But is all this common in the US? Or at least common enough? I feel it has to do with a partial pin-pen merger, because it only happens in certain syllables before "n" (it doesn't happen in "contest", for example, which has the same stress pattern as "comment").
Johnny   Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:08 pm GMT
Here's an example of AK-sint. Russel Peters doesn't have a foreign accent, I hope. Or maybe it's just my ears... I have to say I often have a hard time distinguishing /ɛ/ from /ɪ/ before /n/, in some cases.

1:12 - Russel Peters: "It's an accent, we're not deaf."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw6RgIf6epQ
T   Sat Feb 07, 2009 1:10 pm GMT
I'm pretty sure that Peters sample has a classic double-stress ''ak-,sent' (as opposed to ''aksint', the 'i' being a 'schwa' that sounds like an 'i'). It's very subtle, but I think it's there - it's not just in the vowel, but also in the stresses. Native AmE speakers, can you corroborate?

By the way, while I don't know how to write using IPA here, it's not an 'e' sound versus an 'i' sound. It's an 'e' sound versus a schwa that sounds a bit like an 'i'. Schwas differ depending on context - this was a big surprise to me when first starting accent work, actually. Compare the schwas in 'pastor' and 'extraneous', for instance. The first is a typical 'er' kind of schwa, while the second is more of an 'i' kind of schwa. At least in general AmE.
T   Sat Feb 07, 2009 2:08 pm GMT
Actually, on second listen, Peter's delivery does sound like ''aks(schwa)nt' a lot of the time.

You can hear an example of what I think is the more common AmE delivery if you go to encarta.com and look up 'accent' in the dictionary.
T   Sat Feb 07, 2009 2:09 pm GMT
And I meant "Peters's delivery". Sorry for the triple post.
LL   Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:15 pm GMT
I pronounce like Lazar does.
Johnny   Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:18 pm GMT
This guy seems to say "ak-sint" too:
0:20 - When they try to do a New York accent... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apyL9wBWvIk

Or this:
0:09 - And I start getting comments like this one... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA5z6apJP0w

I just searched Youtube, clicked on the first relevant or interesting video, and there you go. It's really not rare at all. It seems so common to me, and I believe it has to do with a partial pin-pen merger in syllables that don't carry the main stress (even if they have a secondary stress).

Commints are welcome. :)
Lo   Sun Feb 08, 2009 6:48 pm GMT
k@-MENT and MInt for me, they don't really rhyme.
(New York)