Spelling and Pronunciation

I. Spelling and Pronunciation

Some pronunciation errors occur because the speaker does not know how to translate the spelling of a word into sound. In English there is a low correlation between spelling and sound. There are often several ways to pronounce a single letter. For example, the consonant letter “s” may be pronounced /s/ sun, /z/ visit, /ʃ/ sure, or /ʒ/division. Similarly, the vowel letter “o” may be pronounced /o͜u/ home, /ɑ/ pot, /ɔ/ song, /ʌ/ mother, /u/ womb, /ʊ/ wolf, /ɪ/ women, or /ə/ police. When combined with other letters the letter “o” has even more pronunciations: “eo” /i/ people, “oi” /ɔ͜i/ oil, “ou” /ɑ͜u/ house or /ʌ/ cousin, and “or” /ɝ/ work or /ɔ͜ɚ/ north.

On the other hand, a single speech sound, or phoneme, may have several different spellings, such as the consonant sound /k/, which may be spelled with the letters “c” cap, “ch” chorus, “ck” stick, “k” keep, “q” quiet, “x” box,or a combination of these: kick, technique. Similarly, the vowel sound /ɔ/ may be spelled with the letters “a” call, “au” laundry, “aw” lawn, “o” song, “ou” thought, or “oa” Broadway.

This confusion of spelling and pronunciation is why the international phonetic alphabet (IPA) is used here to represent the sounds of words. It has a one-to-one correspondence between symbol and sound that is fixed and never changes.

Part I considers A: Words with odd and bizarre spellings, B: Silent Letters, C: Spelling Anomalies, and D: Words in which two successive vowel letters are pronounced separately with different sounds instead of with one sound.

A. Odd and Bizarre Spellings

Words such as quinoa, colonel, Tyrwhitt, Worcester and bivouac are spelled in ways that do not match their pronunciations. In other words, if you are not already familiar with the word, you may not know how to pronounce it based on its spelling. Consider each of the following words and make sure you are pronouncing it correctly.

B. Silent Consonant Letters

Each of the following words has one and occasionally two or more letters that are silent—or, not pronounced. A pronunciation error that you want to avoid is pronouncing a letter that, although a part of the spelling of the word, is not pronounced. For example, you don’t want to pronounce the letter “p” in “pneumonia” and “receipt,” the “b” at the end of “climb,” the “h” in “honorable” and “vehicle,” the “s” in Illinois,” the “t” in “rapport,” or the “l” in “salmon.” Consider each of the following words and make sure you are not pronouncing the silent letter or letters.

C. Spelling Anomalies

Many consonant letters are usually pronounced only one way. For example, the letter “b” is always pronounced /b/—unless it is silent as it is in the word “climb” [klɑ͜im]. But many consonant letters also have alternative pronunciations. For example, the letter “d,” which is usually pronounced /d/ as in “day,” “dog,” or “did,” may also be pronounced as /ʤ/ in words such as “education” and “graduate.” Similarly, the letter “t,” which is usually pronounced /t/ as in “taken” and “tight,” may also be pronounced as /ʧ/ in “question” and “situation” and as /ʃ/ in “conscientious” and “facetious.” The letters “th,” which are normally pronounced /θ/ as in “Thursday” or /ð/ as in “father,” are pronounced as /t/ in “thyme” and “Beethoven” and /ʧ/ in “posthumously.” Pronounce each of the following words carefully, noticing the alternative pronounciations of certain consonant letters.

D. Two Consecutive Vowel Letters Pronounced Separately

Many vowel sounds are spelled with a combination of two vowel letters such as “ie” in believe, “oa” in coat, and “ai” in available. But occasionally two vowel letters next to each other will be pronounced separately as two distinctly different vowel sounds—making two separate syllables as well. For example, the letters “oi” in the word “coin” are pronounced as one vowel sound [kɔ͜in], but the same two letters in the “coincide” are pronounced as two separate vowel sounds and syllables: [ko͜uɪn`sɑ͜id]. Similarly, the letters “ear” are pronounced as the single vowel diphthong /ɪ͜ɚ/ in the words “ear,” “clear,” and “rear,” but are pronounced as two separate vowels in the words “nuclear” and “rearrangement.” Study the following words and note how two consecutive vowel letters are pronounced as two different vowels and syllables.