[etni] Fw: re: The strange language of English...
----- Original Message ----- From: "Betty Ann McCroskey" <bettym@xxxxxxxxxxx> 
Subject: Re: The strange language of English...


Hi-

I am a retired teacher of at-risk readers and dyslexic students who had to
deal with these numerous "inconsistencies" of pronunciation of English
words.  This is due to the many languages of American immigrants throughout
our history whose words have made their way into our unique language. There are several phonics rules that are involved with solving these pronunciation 
problems.  Rather than go into all these rules (I covered them during an
entire school year for my students), I am including a helpful website,
dictionary.com  that gives the pronunciation that you can actually hear of
the word in question, the definition of the word, and the etymology of the
word.  I hope you will find it helpful.  By the way, the correct
pronunciations of "calm" is "kahlm" and "balm" is "bahlm."  If I can be of
further assistance to you, please do not hesitate to contact me.  I
congratulate you for trying to make sense of our American English words to
your students and will be happy to give you some of the phonics rules
involved with the words you listed in your email if you are interested.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/

Best wishes always,

Betty Ann McCroskey
bettym@xxxxxxxxxxx


Henry wrote:

Hi there ETNIERS:
I must say that I have strong feelings of support for all you teachers of English. I was wondering how you cope with the following phenomenon: There are many (quite common) words in the English language in which their spelling is contrary to the way the word is pronounced. Here are some examples of what I mean, 'off the top of my head'. I shall include the pronunciation for the benefit of those who are not English experts. balm [barm], buoyant [ boyant], cabaret [ cabaray], calm [carm], column [kollum], cough [ koff], crumb [krum], damn [dam], diaphragm [diafram], doubt [dowt], fasten [farsen], gnat [nat], gnome [nome], guinea [ginnee], hasten [haisen], honor [onner], hymn [ him], knapsack [napsack], knee [nee], knight [nite], knit [nit], listen [lissen], numb [ num], phlegm [flem], pneumatic [numatic], psychology [sykology], receipt [reseet], rheumatic [ roomatik], straight [strait], subtle [suttle], thistle [thissle], though [tho], thumb [thum], thyme [time], tomb [toom], whistle [wissle]. wrap [ rap], wrinkle [rinkle] In some cases the letter is not pronounced at all and in others, the sound is changed. I was wondering whether, as teachers of English, if you allot any time to a discussion of this phenomenon. Also, is there a collection of these inconsistencies on the Internet? 


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