Today while walking home, I decided that it's about time that I learn to pronounce "milk" correctly. I have always pronounced it like "melk", which was never corrected until I went away to college. Then the university-educated snobs in my company began to laugh at me. Specifically, Cory, but I remember a few people making remarks about my pronounciation and then asking me to repeat the words again so that everyone could hear my distortion. Of course, finding out how different parts of the country pronounce things was one of the ways we kept ourselves amused during meal times. It especially helped that Jackie was studying linguistics, and she would explain why our sounds were different anatomically. Our fun was multiplied when John joined our group and brought along his slight Southern accent. I remember we spent most of our dinner at the House of Blues analyzing how he says "pink." Somehow, he gets an aitch (h) in there. I know how to spell "aitch" because that was a word on the National Spelling Bee when it was broadcast on ESPN a few years back. The kid actually asked them for alternative definitions of "aitch"! It's the eighth letter of the alphabet, kid, what more do you want?
But back to my walk home. I have decided to start my lessons by repeating the phrase "mint milkshake." I think that both i's are to sound the same, but currently they do not. To emphasize the difference in how I currently pronounce "milk" to the proper way, I will repeat "do not melt the milkshake." I'm not sure if I feel more like Henry Higgins or Eliza Doolittle.
2 comments:
After junior year of high school I did this special summer program to learn Japanese. One presentation I had to make was on Shinto, a religion there. The only comment my professor made was that I pronounced "worship" like "warship" and then he made me practice it in front of the whole class.
"It's wuuuuuuuuuuurship, not waaaaaaarship. Try it again."
I didn't get an A.
My problem word: water
I say, wudder. People laugh, its a great time. But really, I pronounce it more like wudder, without such an emphasis on the A. Most people lay down and take a friggin nap on the A like its all they got time for in the world. I personally prefer to get through that portion of the word at a relatively clipped pace.
Wudder!
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