What do you think about changing the spelling of "vacuum" to "vacuüm"? I think it should be changed to that as I commonly hear it mispronounced as "vac-ume" rather than the correct pronunciation "vac-ue-um". The diacritic would help indicate that the "uu" represents two syllables rather than being a single digraph. It's commonly mistaken to be a single diagraph which leads to the mispronunciation "vac-ume"
vacuüm
It's a mispronunciation due to people mistakenly thinking the "uu" represents a digraph. The two "u's" are actually separate syllables. "vacuum" ends the exact same way "millennium", "datum", "album" etc. end.
>>Who says "vac-ume" is a mispronunciation?<<
That was my question - in General American at least, the standard pronuciation of "vacuum" is ["v{kjum], and I have never hears a three-syllable realization of "vacuum" myself. If anything, I would find such to a be a spelling pronunciation more than anything else.
That was my question - in General American at least, the standard pronuciation of "vacuum" is ["v{kjum], and I have never hears a three-syllable realization of "vacuum" myself. If anything, I would find such to a be a spelling pronunciation more than anything else.
<<That was my question - in General American at least, the standard pronuciation of "vacuum" is ["v{kjum], and I have never hears a three-syllable realization of "vacuum" myself. If anything, I would find such to a be a spelling pronunciation more than anything else.>>
It's the opposite actually. "vac-ume" is the spelling pronunciation due to people thinking that two u's together form a digraph. For some reason, people think that everytime two vowels are together, it's a digraph. That's not the case. "vacuum" actually comes from Latin which certain pronounces the u's as separate syllables.
It's the opposite actually. "vac-ume" is the spelling pronunciation due to people thinking that two u's together form a digraph. For some reason, people think that everytime two vowels are together, it's a digraph. That's not the case. "vacuum" actually comes from Latin which certain pronounces the u's as separate syllables.
>>It's the opposite actually. "vac-ume" is the spelling pronunciation due to people thinking that two u's together form a digraph. For some reason, people think that everytime two vowels are together, it's a digraph. That's not the case. "vacuum" actually comes from Latin which certain pronounces the u's as separate syllables. <<
And so what if "vacuum" came from Latin? Does that mean that we must somehow pronounce it exactly the same as the Romans did, and that we must "fix" every loan in English from Latin that does not correspond to such?
And so what if "vacuum" came from Latin? Does that mean that we must somehow pronounce it exactly the same as the Romans did, and that we must "fix" every loan in English from Latin that does not correspond to such?
Another thing commonly mispronounced due to spelling influences is "long-lived". People mistakenly think that the "lived" part is the past tense of the verb "live" and thus pronounce it /lQN lIvd/ rather than the correct pronunciation /lQN lVIvd/.
The absurdity of the proposal should be evident in the fact that, in order to preserve a Latin-like pronunciation, you want to make the spelling more divergent from Latin, including a character that was entirely absent from the Latin alphabet in the first place. As a learner of English, I was taught to pronounce "vacuum" as ["v{k.ju.@m] but my perception is that most people use two syllables, so I've adapted my pronunciation accordingly.
The OED only lists ["v{.kju.@m], but I've never heard anyone say it like that in real life. For 'long-lived' however, only [lQN.lIvd] is listed. I've never heard anyone pronounce it as you do.
I say long-lived with a short I, and va-kyoom. So there can't possibly be anything wrong with those pronunciations! ;p
<<It's the opposite actually. "vac-ume" is the spelling pronunciation due to people thinking that two u's together form a digraph. For some reason, people think that everytime two vowels are together, it's a digraph. That's not the case. "vacuum" actually comes from Latin which certain pronounces the u's as separate syllables.>>
It can't simply be that people are "mistaking" the uu for a single sound, because we have no problem with differentiating the two o's in "cooperate" or the two u's in "continuum", without any help from umlauts, which are now only found in old texts.
I was talking plants with my mother, who took Latin in college as part of her studies, and mentioned that I wasn't sure if my new purchase was supposed to be pronounced "PLUM-ba-go" or "plum-BAY-go" and I think her reply summed it up nicely: "Well, it's a dead language, so you can pronounce it any way you like -- no one's going to be offended!"
<<It's the opposite actually. "vac-ume" is the spelling pronunciation due to people thinking that two u's together form a digraph. For some reason, people think that everytime two vowels are together, it's a digraph. That's not the case. "vacuum" actually comes from Latin which certain pronounces the u's as separate syllables.>>
It can't simply be that people are "mistaking" the uu for a single sound, because we have no problem with differentiating the two o's in "cooperate" or the two u's in "continuum", without any help from umlauts, which are now only found in old texts.
I was talking plants with my mother, who took Latin in college as part of her studies, and mentioned that I wasn't sure if my new purchase was supposed to be pronounced "PLUM-ba-go" or "plum-BAY-go" and I think her reply summed it up nicely: "Well, it's a dead language, so you can pronounce it any way you like -- no one's going to be offended!"
>>It can't simply be that people are "mistaking" the uu for a single sound, because we have no problem with differentiating the two o's in "cooperate" or the two u's in "continuum", without any help from umlauts, which are now only found in old texts.<<
Exactly. For instance, I consistently have [k_h1~n"t_hI~:nju:@~:m] for "continuum" and similarly have [k_h@:"wapR=:e?] or, more carefully, [k_ho:"apR=:e?] for "cooperate", and the pronunciations in General American IIRC are pretty damn close to my own aside from some details like vowel reduction and whether "cooperate" has [w] in it.
Exactly. For instance, I consistently have [k_h1~n"t_hI~:nju:@~:m] for "continuum" and similarly have [k_h@:"wapR=:e?] or, more carefully, [k_ho:"apR=:e?] for "cooperate", and the pronunciations in General American IIRC are pretty damn close to my own aside from some details like vowel reduction and whether "cooperate" has [w] in it.
You're applying Latin pronunciation rules to a language that isn't Latin. Should we also pronounce "wiener" as "veener"? (Well, *I* think we should, but nobody else does. ;))
My dictionary of choice, www.m-w.com (be warned that it's very America-centric), gives the "wrong" pronunciations of "vacuum" and "long-lived" as the primary ones. Anyway, what determines what is correct is actual usage, not etymology. There are lots of English word forms and pronunciations that come from what are essentially mistakes. For instance, "sweetheart" is actually an alteration of "sweetard" (compare words like "dullard"), but nobody has seriously said "sweetard" for centuries.
Besides, it could be not that people are mistaking "uu" for a digraph, they just find splitting it into two syllables to be too cumbersome to say. How many other English words do you commonly use that have that same vowel split? Unless maybe you're a scientist or something, probably zero or very close to it.
As for the actual proposal, changing the spelling of "vacuum" to "vacuüm" would have no effect other than making it harder to type the "correct" spelling. Most native English speakers have no idea what those two dots in words like "naïve" are doing anyway (I have even seen people spell it "naieve" under false analogy with German umlauts), and they have long been disappearing from words like "coöperate" (only The New Yorker still does this, as far as I know). It's a trend that can't be fought against. When language changes, all you can do is go with the flow...
- Kef
My dictionary of choice, www.m-w.com (be warned that it's very America-centric), gives the "wrong" pronunciations of "vacuum" and "long-lived" as the primary ones. Anyway, what determines what is correct is actual usage, not etymology. There are lots of English word forms and pronunciations that come from what are essentially mistakes. For instance, "sweetheart" is actually an alteration of "sweetard" (compare words like "dullard"), but nobody has seriously said "sweetard" for centuries.
Besides, it could be not that people are mistaking "uu" for a digraph, they just find splitting it into two syllables to be too cumbersome to say. How many other English words do you commonly use that have that same vowel split? Unless maybe you're a scientist or something, probably zero or very close to it.
As for the actual proposal, changing the spelling of "vacuum" to "vacuüm" would have no effect other than making it harder to type the "correct" spelling. Most native English speakers have no idea what those two dots in words like "naïve" are doing anyway (I have even seen people spell it "naieve" under false analogy with German umlauts), and they have long been disappearing from words like "coöperate" (only The New Yorker still does this, as far as I know). It's a trend that can't be fought against. When language changes, all you can do is go with the flow...
- Kef