The final "e"

Status
Not open for further replies.

Rachel Adams

Key Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2018
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Russian
Home Country
Georgia
Current Location
Georgia
According to the rule about the final "e," it affects the pronunciation of the first vowel in a word as in "nose" and "pine," but "post" /pəʊst/ doesn't end in "e," however the "o" still pronounced as /əʊ/. Are there no absolute rules regarding the "e" in words either and when it affects the pronunciation and when it doesn't?
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Never mind "post", the fact that the rule isn't a rule is demonstrated by the simple fact that "nose" doesn't rhyme with "lose".
 

Rover_KE

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jun 20, 2010
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
Again, Rachel, 'Looking for rules to English pronunciation will, ultimately, drive you insane!' (emsr2d2) ... (especially 'absolute' rules).
 

GoesStation

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Anglophone children learn to "sound out" words based on tendencies. There are few if any universal rules in English pronunciation.
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Here you go, Rachel. Enjoy. Come back to us with any questions once you've mastered all the pronunciations in this poem!

Poem of English Pronunciation

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhymes with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough?
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is give it up!

Written by Gerard Nolst Trenité
 

Charlie Bernstein

VIP Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
More:

These rhyme with each other:

giraffe
laugh
half
decaf
staff
graph

And these rhyme with each other, too:

do
who
Sioux
queue
ewe
you
pooh
shoe
two
brew
due
zoo
view
true
roux
moue

And these words do NOT rhyme:

stone
done
gone
abalone

Most Americans study English for at least twelve years — and still make mistakes.
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
More:

These rhyme with each other:

giraffe
laugh
half
decaf
staff
graph

(They only rhyme in BrE if you're from somewhere north of the Watford Gap or west of Southampton. Where I'm from, "decaf" doesn't rhyme with the other five.)

Most Americans study English for at least twelve years — and still make mistakes.

My comment in blue above is just for information.

Charlie, do American students really study pronunciation, though?
 

Charlie Bernstein

VIP Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
My comment in blue above is just for information.

Charlie, do American students really study pronunciation, though?
No, not at all. But students do get graded on spelling (and grammar) from first through twelfth grade — and often graduate without knowing how to spell. When I tutored college kids, hardly an afternoon went by without definately.

How do you pronounce decaf? Here we say it sort of like kneecap.
 

Tarheel

VIP Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
I drink decaf
And then I laugh.
Or I don't
Because I won't.
:)
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
How do you pronounce decaf? Here we say it sort of like kneecap.

That's how we pronounce it too. The issue is that in the other five, the "a" is more like "ar" (without the rhotic "r") or "ah".
 

GoesStation

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
And let's not forget bath/Bath. I once made a British bassoonist cringe by pronouncing the city à l'américaine.
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Using a short "a" (as in "cat") isn't just AmE pronunciation. It's exactly the kind of thing I was talking about when I mentioned BrE variants. People in the south-east of England would use a long "a" (like "ar" but without the rhotic "r"), but those from most of the north of England (and some of the south-west) would use the short "a".
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top