How to pronounce car names

[pimento]

In America it's spelled without the second i. It was too many letters for them to remember, so they dropped one.

[Mugen_Ferio]

Thats true yes. May explain the reason why they drive on the wrong side of the road

[csl177]

Im going to go of topic here but speaking of words that Americans cant pronounce correctly. Aluminium. Why is it that Americans do not pronounce it like we, the aussies and the Brits do? You know how you guys pronounce it

Etymology: The earliest citation given in the Oxford English Dictionary for any word used as a name for this element is alumium, which British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy employed in 1808 for the metal he was trying to isolate electrolytically from the mineral alumina. The citation is from the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: "Had I been so fortunate as to have obtained more certain evidences on this subject, and to have procured the metallic substances I was in search of, I should have proposed for them the names of silicium, alumium, zirconium, and glucium." Davy settled on aluminum by the time he published his 1812 book Chemical Philosophy: "This substance appears to contain a peculiar metal, but as yet Aluminum has not been obtained in a perfectly free state, though alloys of it with other metalline substances have been procured sufficiently distinct to indicate the probable nature of alumina." But the same year, an anonymous contributor to the Quarterly Review, a British political-literary journal, in a review of Davy's book, objected to aluminum and proposed the name aluminium, "for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound." [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium"]Aluminium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

In America it's spelled without the second i. It was too many letters for them to remember, so they dropped one.

See above... we and the Canadians leave out the extra (superfluous) syllable and pronounce it as the originator did.
We can't help that some snooty anon Brit wanted it to sound loftier.

No comment on which side of the road is proper save that in both cases, the driver is closest to road center.
Are Europe and the entire Western Hemisphere just being contrarian to the UK?

[jcp123]

My oldest question is about the Caribbean Islands...

...Caribb-EE-an, or Car-IBB-ean?

[csl177]

^^^ It comes from the (now extinct) Carib indians that occupied most of the Lesser Antilles; the Spanish originally named the waters from Cuba & Hispanola to Trinidad "Sea of Antilles" but Caribbean Sea came to common usage by Dutch, Portugese and English explorers. From experience, many islanders pronounce it Car-IBB-ean, mon... but correctly (because of the root word) it's Car-ib-EE-an. Hang around any place from the Bahamas to Barbados long enough and your pronunciation will change.

[jcp123]

^^^ It comes from the (now extinct) Carib indians that occupied most of the Lesser Antilles; the Spanish originally named the waters from Cuba & Hispanola to Trinidad "Sea of Antilles" but Caribbean Sea came to common usage by Dutch, Portugese and English explorers. From experience, many islanders pronounce it Car-IBB-ean, mon... but correctly (because of the root word) it's Car-ib-EE-an. Hang around any place from the Bahamas to Barbados long enough and your pronunciation will change.

I was afraid of that. The answer doesn't really answer my question. I'll go with the locals' pronounciation though

Reminds me of the local area...there's a (small) city and (decent sized) reservoir named Palestine and Lake Palestine, respectively. Except that around here, they are pronounced Palest-EEN, not Palest-AYN. Strangely enough, the Palestinian lands in Israel's neighborhood are still pronounced the correct way. I insisted on pronouncing everything the latter way, but gave up about a year into my residence here

[pimento]

I interchange pronunciations of 'router' [the networking kit] because when I was working in an ISP call centre I got sick of customers 'correcting' me. To me it makes sense to pronounce it rooter because it sends packets along routes (pronounced root around here) but many go with the woodworking tool that routs things type pronunciation. I also used to work with a French guy who handled the routers (ze rooters).

[Matra et Alpine]

csl, if it's considered "superfluous" then how do you spell calcium, strontium, helium, potassium

Wiki --- hm never a great trusted site for facts as the rest of the UNCITED text conveys

I love the theory put forward that it was a SPELLING mistake on a flier by an American and then was adopted.

BUT the craziness is that it was agreed as a WORLD STANDARD and then the US decided no, we want to keep ours. Guess it fits in nicely with imperial measurements

[Naqiuddin]

make sense to you. lol

[ish_123]

How do you pronounce Esprit?

[csl177]

ess-pree

[drakkie]

ess-pree

Not exactly. It's a French word so it is more like Ess - prrriiie

Just listen to it; its real simple:
Google Translate

[csl177]

Let's not get pedantic pal, my limited French is fine. Gots proper enuuunciation an' everthin'... but an American was asking.

[5150]

How about Hyundai?

[henk4]

How about Hyundai?

Hee-un-day ?
i have also hear Hi-un-di..