-mouth pronounciation

[Roberto]

*** lately thread title modification, "-mouth pronunciation", hopefully it will be correct***



plymouth, exmouth, dartmouth...

for a foreigner, is there an easy way of knowing or remembering when the -mouth has to be pronounced mouth like mouth, or like "mooth, moth, meth, meyth, etc"


thanks




oh, and if someone can explain why it is plymouth and plywood, is it the "m" letter against the "w" semivowel than changes the "ply" ?

 

[sailorman]

plymouth, exmouth, dartmouth...

for a foreigner, is there an easy way of knowing or remembering when the -mouth has to be pronounced mouth like mouth, or like "mooth, moth, meth, meyth, etc"


thanks

all those are "muth" eg Plym uth, Ex muth

 

[Twister_Ken]

Without allowing for regional accents, I think all the 'mouths' in port names are pronounced 'muth'.

Someone will no doubt now come up with a dozen exceptions!

 

[Roberto]

thank you!

while looking at phonetic transcriptions I thought I saw exmouth like "mouth" but I was probably confused

so even if there may be possible exceptions, whatever coastal place ending in -mouth is "muth", good!


and plywood plymouth, or Lyme Regis - Lymington ?
(just showing names with the same root that on the internet are indicated with different pronounciations)

 

[LONG_KEELER]

Someone will no doubt now come up with a dozen exceptions!

How about this one for a start :-

Neither. The 'ou' in Portsmouth is an unstressed vowel /ə/. The same vowel can be found in the vowel represented by the letter 'a' in England /iŋglənd/.
More people here seem to be like to use the letter 'u' to represent the unstressed vowel /ə/, but be careful the vowel represented by 'ou' in Portsmouth is the same as 'u' in 'REBUS /ri:bəs/' rather than the 'u' in 'BUS /bʌs/'
Source(s):
M.A. Linguistics University of London

 

[sailorman]

How about this one for a start :-

Neither. The 'ou' in Portsmouth is an unstressed vowel /ə/. The same vowel can be found in the vowel represented by the letter 'a' in England /iŋglənd/.
More people here seem to be like to use the letter 'u' to represent the unstressed vowel /ə/, but be careful the vowel represented by 'ou' in Portsmouth is the same as 'u' in 'REBUS /ri:bəs/' rather than the 'u' in 'BUS /bʌs/'
Source(s):
M.A. Linguistics University of London

are you a cunning linguist

 

[LONG_KEELER]

are you a cunning linguist

I have no idea what he is talking about.

I can relate to stressed vowel's after a tide of sailing in F6 and 3 pints of Guinness .

 

[elton]

TyneMOUTH is definitely not Tynemth.

 

[jerrytug]

Cockermouth!

 

[Achillesheel]

Exmouth in Devon is muth, but Exmouth in Australia (South of Perth) is mouth.

 

[prv]

oh, and if someone can explain why it is plymouth and plywood, is it the "m" letter against the "w" semivowel than changes the "ply" ?

Nope, no reason, it's just the way it is.

If you're looking for logic in English pronunciation, especially of place names, then you're out of luck.

Even as a British native, there are a lot of places whose pronunciation I'd only be guessing at if I hadn't heard them before.

Pete

 

[trapezeartist]

Sorry, Roberto. English placenames are like the English language: a zillion different pronunciations and no rules at all to guide you. I'm afraid the only foolproof way is to learn each one individually (and you'll still find alternative opinions on occasions). I didn't know Tynemouth is pronounced like the hole in my face.

 

[jerrytug]

Creekmouth,the tidal bit of the river Ravensbourne,a tributary to the tidal Thames at Deptford. "Mouth" is said as Ray Winstone would say "mouth".

 

[JumbleDuck]

... the vowel represented by 'ou' in Portsmouth is the same as 'u' in 'REBUS /ri:bəs/' rather than the 'u' in 'BUS /bʌs/'
Source(s):
M.A. Linguistics University of London

If that had been the University of Edinburgh, there would have been no "rather than" about it. It's a bit of a tangent, but one of the problems primary school teachers I know have with commercial phonics schemes is that they assume children have a south of England accents, and that, for example, "four" and "for" are pronounced the same. Not in Scotland they aren't.

OP, the reason "Plymouth" doesn't start off like "Plywood" is that it's at the mouth of the River Plym, not the River Ply.

 

[JumbleDuck]

TyneMOUTH is definitely not Tynemth.

Alunmooth but Annick.

 

[Elessar]

Creekmouth,the tidal bit of the river Ravensbourne,a tributary to the tidal Thames at Deptford. "Mouth" is said as Ray Winstone would say "mouth".

At depp-fudd. Hmm.....

 

[jerrytug]

AvonMOUTH surely? that's how I say it anyway.

 

[mjcoon]

oh, and if someone can explain why it is plymouth and plywood, is it the "m" letter against the "w" semivowel than changes the "ply" ?

Plymouth is at the mouth of the river Plym (as well as the Tamar and Tavy) which is pronounced Plimm. Maybe ply as in plywood has some relationship with plex meaning multiple.

Mike.

 

[Roberto]

OP, the reason "Plymouth" doesn't start off like "Plywood" is that it's at the mouth of the River Plym, not the River Ply.

thank you, I begin to see some logic after all


from outside the UK, English is often shown as an easy to learn language, grammar is rather straightforward, one does not have to learn the spelling of fifteen different tenses multiplied by six "I - you - he/she - we - you - they", regular verbs are all -ed -ed, add an "s" for plurals except for funny animals like goose mouse and their friends... then one discovers English has about 600 000 words whereas the average neo-latin language has about 300 000 (I stand to be corrected but I think I am not very far from reality)

fascinating subject

 

[mjcoon]

...

I can relate to stressed vowel's after a tide of sailing in F6 and 3 pints of Guinness .

I guess that "M.A. Linguistics University of London" didn't cover use of apostrophes? Or have you been working as a greengrocer since?

Mike.