This is driving me crazy. What is correct pronunciation of Tournament?

[PinkTiger]

I have always pronounced it Tur' na ment, and the word "Tourney" as "tur ney."

But on TV I hear the following:

"Tore na ment"

I would expect maybe to hear

Toor na ment and Toor ney

but not

TORE na ment.

Nobody pronounces it the way I do.

And I grew up and live in SW Missouri.

[ananda]

1. you say potato

Good grief. Who cares?

I always say -- turn-a-ment .. and.. turn-ey. But I know it's ok to say it like torn-a-ment and torn-ey also.

It's like -vase- and -vaz-. It took me a while to get used to that one.

Or adverTIZEment and adVERtissment. Weird.

I guess I can get used to anything.

I'm still having trouble with some new spellings that are getting regularized.. like "lead" for "led."

Sue

[yurbud]

8. I say I-day-ho

[WinkyDink]

2. It's whatever the dictionary says!

Otherwise, it's a dialect.

The one that gets ME, though, is saying "ON" for the prefix "UN". E.g., "Onfinished business".
Drives me NUTS!!!!!!

Don't EVEN get me started on people saying "pen" when the word is "pin"!

[Warpy]

3. HOLLOW-een

That one drives me berserk, dunno why, must be my Irish roots.

Newkewlar. Joolery. Realitor. Athalete.

Whenever I hear any of those, I know the program has the right wing stamp of approval.

[Lex]

5. "pitcher" for "picture" drives me nuts

[yurbud]

7. "armhair" for "napkin" drives me nuts. Okay, maybe not.

[Lex]

18. Hey, that's funny. Okay, maybe not.

[TahitiNut]

29. "Drives me NUTS!" ???

You should be so lucky. :silly: :silly:

[Dances with Cats]

4. TURN -a munt

[yurbud]

6. too-yur-nah-mink

[Jersey Ginny]

9. Random House Collegiate Dictionary says

"toor' ne me(that upside down e)nt
Is also says "tu (with a thing over the u)r'- as an optional way of saying the first syllable.
I guess it can be said both ways. I'm partial to the first.

[Orangepeel]

10. I say turn-a-mint, but tore-na-ment makes sense to me

because I pronounce tour as tore.

[TahitiNut]

11. It's a LIVING LANGUAGE ... driven by USAGE, not EDICT.

Dictionaries follow, people lead. When a word (like "often") changes in the way people pronounce it, the dictionary journalizes that change.

Anecdote: When I was in 4th Grade, the dictionary entry for the word "often" only 'approved' of the "off-en" pronunciation, despite the fact that many people ("incorrectly") pronounced it as "off-ten." That's a FACT. (I know, because I got entrapped by a teacher and was required to research it through MANY dictionaries. It was a "lesson" - of a kind.)

Today, the pronunciation of "off-ten" is 'accepted.' USAGE RULEZ!!!

[Oeditpus Rex]

19. Ah, the landing cushion for those who can't fly

"Language evolves." In other words, "If enough people do it incorrectly, we'll just change the standard." :eyes:

[fishwax]

21. as opposed to the ostrich strategy

:)

it's pretty hard to deny that language evolves :shrug:

[dalaigh lllama]

23. Well, actually, that's how it works

Think of all the words with extra letters that are no longer pronounced because people got "lazy" and stopped enunciating them -- "knight" and "fought", for example. And think of words like "colonel" -- how do you pronounce that?

Wasn't it a few years ago when the French passed a law forbidding any changes to their language? I think American English is considered one of the most vibrant languages going because we're so willing to "mess" with it.

[TahitiNut]

26. Yep. Consider: 'handsome,' 'consumption,' and 'chestnut'

"During the 15th century English experienced a widespread loss of certain consonant sounds within consonant clusters, as the (d) in handsome and handkerchief, the (p) in consumption and raspberry, and the (t) in chestnut and often. In this way the consonant clusters were simplified and made easier to articulate. With the rise of public education and literacy and, consequently, people's awareness of spelling in the 19th century, sounds that had become silent sometimes were restored, as is the case with the t in often, which is now frequently pronounced. In other similar words, such as soften and listen, the t generally remains silent."
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=often

Interestingly, language Nazis like our friend above and the teacher that sandbagged me as a 4th grader were, up until about 30 years ago, insisting upon the "proper" pronunciation that itself had evolved due to illiteracy and the lack of public education.

If that ain't fucking ironic then I don't know what is. :silly:

[TahitiNut]

28. You mean like Dr. Samuel Johnson, huh?

"[H]is dictionary was the first to record not some lexicographer's ideal of what words ought to mean, but how they had actually been used. He seems, when he started out, to have entertained hopes that his dictionary would "fix" the English language and banish errors. But he quickly came to realise that languages live by changing, and he was the first to formulate the modern concept of lexicography as an endlessly evolving record of usage. For someone of Johnson's politics this must have been a difficult adjustment. A diehard Tory monarchist, he disliked change and hated busybody reformers. The devil, he told Boswell, was the first Whig. But throwing out dictatorial ideas of lexicography fitted in with his British love of freedom. Other countries, he observed, had set up academies to regulate usage, but "to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride"."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2102-1538074,00.html

"In addressing the question of Johnson's intentions regarding his Dictionary, we must first debunk one of many popular misconceptions held by the general public, as well as linguistic and literary scholars who should know better, namely that Johnson was trying to "fix" the English language. Indeed, while his original Plan of an English Dictionary of 1747 is full of prescriptive sentiment, indicating that he was determined to set English in stone once and for all, in fact, through the very process of writing the mighty tome, Johnson became far more modern in his awareness of language. While it was, no doubt, his personal dream to have his fellow Englishmen speak and write correctly, the lesson of his own dictionary taught him the difference between stability and stagnation, as well as imparting a deeper understanding of the living, fluid quality of his native tongue. He declared as much in the preface to the Dictionary when he wrote, "Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design will require that I should fix our language, and put a stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto been suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will confess that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin to fear that I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor experience can justify." <2> This is not to say that he had thrown up his hands and fallen in with what in modern parlance would be termed the "descriptive school." He remained extremely conservative in his views on language, as he stated in the very same preface that, "Much less ought our written language to comply with the corruptions of oral utterance, or copy that which every variation of time or place makes different from itself, and imitate those changes which will again be changed, while imitation is employed in observing them." <3>

As we have seen, Johnson's intention in writing his Dictionary was an evolving one, changing over the course of the writing itself. The final version of it can be seen in the preface to the abridged edition, published in 1756, wherein he states, "I lately published a Dictionary like those compiled by the academies of Italy and France, for the use of such as aspire to exactness of criticism, or elegance of style." <4> It is this two-fold intention, the creation of a dictionary to serve the pursuits of criticism and style, that has, as I shall endeavor to prove in the summation of this paper, been gloriously and effectively realized."
http://www.cyberpat.com/essays/sam.html

Perhaps if you learned a bit more about the history of the English language you wouldn't make statements that might cause some to think you a pompous, ill-informed ass? (Not understanding and compassionate folks like us, of course ... but your friends, associates, and neighbors.)

[fishwax]

22. usage rulez

tee hee :)

:toast:

[mr_hat]

12. TURN a kay.

[Straight Shooter]

13. Will everyone just set down and relax!

:P

[Dances with Cats]

15. "sit" down

:-)

[Straight Shooter]

17. Now, why do you think I stuck out my tongue after posting that message?

;)

[marylanddem]

14. What drives me nuts is "EX-cetera" for "ETcetera"

And lots of people mispronounce it, I think my mother just drilled it into me that it was a heinous sin to mispronounce ETcetera.

[The empressof all]

16. Espresso pronounced Expresso

Like chalk on a blackboard!

[lakemonster11]

33. That was really confusing to me

when I was a kid, because all of the little drive-through espresso stands near my house said "Expresso" on their signs. I realized later that it must have been the brand name (and was, of course, meant to emphasize their quick service). But it drove me crazy, because I was getting conflicting messages about the pronunciation and spelling of "espresso."

:eyes:

[TahitiNut]

27. You can't ixcape it.

:silly:

[itzamirakul]

32. How about "et-SETruh" for et-cetera?

And Bush's use of "noo-q-ler"

[itzamirakul]

20. Turn - a - mint here...

I think the tv folks are just trying to sound special or something.
I have heard TOUR-nah-mint on tv. Sounds stupid to me.

[PinkTiger]

24. OK. Now I think I understand something.

They are saying "tour" and they are pronouncing it "tore," or "to-er" instead of the southern pronunciation I use, which is "toooer."
South of here, they even put more spin on the "u,", pronouncing it like this:

"Tewer," Rhymes with Skewer.

So now everybody, lets sing it:

"A Three hour Tewer!"

[yurbud]

36. In the south, all words have at least two syllables:

dog= daw ugg

cat = cay utt

me = muh ee

I = i uh

[rug]

25. Well this is a real pissing contest.

[yurbud]

30. oh wait, it's from french so it's "tur noo-MAH"

[yurbud]

31. saying "he or she" instead of "they" for a person whose sex is unknown

In Shakespeare's day, they said "they."

Then someone decided that when you are talking about just one person, it should be singular, so it went to he.

After feminism, that was considered sexist, so instead of doing in writing what we all say, grammar books enforce the clunky, unnatural "he or she," "his or her," etc.

For example, which sounds better:

Someone left their umbrella on the bus.

OR

Someone left his or her umbrella on the bus.

You KNOW which you would say, but two bad ideas have ganged up on common sense: consistency and political correctness.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

34. Well, color me dumbfounded.

I thought that use of they/their was a PC modernism like "he or she".

[yurbud]

35. a worse fix some authors use: arbitrarily using he or she when sex is

unknown.

If you use one or the other, it implies you know the gender of the person when you don't, so it is even more misleading.

"He or she"

"Him or her"

"his or hers"

Makes it sound like you are talking about one of two possible specific people instead of a true unknown.