Today’s word  - SURROGATE - 031006 (YYMMDD) is shown to have have the same pronounciation for all vowels (except the last e which is silent).  It is further given the pron. of U in "but".  Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that vowel (in "but") was pronouced like an "ah" as in "cut", "rut", "slut", "nut", "mutt" and so on.  And I further thought that A in front of te regularly was pronounced as "ey" or "ei" like in "rate", "mate", "hate", "date", "late" and so on.
OR DO I SPEAK SOME OTHER KIND OF ENGLISH.

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Today’s word  - SURROGATE - 031006 (YYMMDD) is shown to have have the same pronounciation for all vowels (except the last e which is silent).  It is further given the pron. of U in "but".  Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that vowel (in "but") was pronouced like an "ah" as in "cut", "rut", "slut", "nut", "mutt" and so on.  And I further thought that A in front of te regularly was pronounced as "ey" or "ei" like in "rate", "mate", "hate", "date", "late" and so on.
OR DO I SPEAK SOME OTHER KIND OF ENGLISH.

actually it is ‘Sar Ah Gat.  At least I pronounce it that way

Katy
H E C K what do I know!

In England it would generally be pronounced with three schwas - the neutral vowel sound you hear in the second syllable of "teacher", for example. In other words, the pronunciation as shown in WOTD.

However, ...

You’ll also hear plenty of people in England and other parts of the British Isles pronouncing the -gate part as "geyt".

And the first syllable can also be "sær-" or "sUr-", depending on the area.

I think the moral is, we all speak some other kind of English.

Ed

Whenever I say surrogate, I say ‘sur-(schwa+r comes out as practically one sound when I say it)-uh-git’.

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Well, call me ignorant, but the first vowel is not there at all.  It has been taken over by the following ‘r’ which has become syllabic in my dialect.

The first syllable, ‘sur-’, sounds just like the word ‘sir’, with which I still address my father and the few remaing men who are older than me.

The other two vowels I pronounce as shwa!

I have heard people pronouce the first syllable with a shwa, a short ‘u’ (as in ‘but’) or even a long ‘u’ (like in ‘mule’).

These sound a bit affected to my ear!

Sitran

Sitran

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Well, call me ignorant, but the first vowel is not there at all.  It has been taken over by the following ‘r’ which has become syllabic in my dialect.

Ah, so THAT’s why George Dubbya keeps on making speeches about the threat from international tourism...!

Coemgenus

Very funny, Coemgenus!  

Although tourism is sometimes pronounced with a syllabic ‘r’ in some dialects, in my dialect it is pronounced with the ‘oo’ aws in ‘moon’.

I have never heard Bush pronounce ‘terrorism’ like ‘tourism’, but I think we should be more selective about ‘tourists’.

‘Terrorism’ has a non-syllabic ‘r’ followed by a syllabic ‘r’.

By the way, the ‘m’ at the end of ‘-ism’ is syllabic also, or, at least, semi-syllabic.  (Is there such a thing?)  As hard as I try I cannot pronounce ‘-ism’ as one syllable.

Sitran

As hard as I try I cannot pronounce ‘-ism’ as one syllable.

Neither can I, Sitran. Perhaps we’ve discovered the "intrusive U".    :)

- PW

Yes, the "intrusive U"… A special report, brought to you from the Agora!

Thanks, PW.  That cracked me up!

-Tim

That’d be Pronunciation ??

Poly )