And if you have no sources contradicting it, where does that leave you? http://colasula.com/?p=530 Makes sense to me and answers the question why we hear two syllables but the phonetic police tell us there is only one.
What i've taken from this is the word syllabification. I thought it must be a made up word but it isn't. And then there's syllabify. Perhaps I'll try to drop these into conversation today.
I'm from the northern half of the UK, where we speak propa'. Most people will have it on their mother's bible it's two syllables, and the idea of thinking of the word as one is just weird to me. Mind you, I currently work in a place where 'war' is a personal pronoun.
I've only ever heard it. is it the o spelling? I honestly have no idea. The best thing I've ever heard was a mixture of Geordie and a Yorkshire dales accent, saying 'Well, m'offta wor college then'.
Since the reference was Jackie Milburn (google him!) text-speak may have rendered my spelling obsolete!
No need to. Wor Jackie was born in the town I now call home. He's a local hero, and is depicted in a sizable statue on our main street. There, now everyone who cares will be googling where I live. I'll save you the time: Ashington, Northumberland. There, go nuts.
I think it's regional, at least phonetically. I use FYE-ir, but there's PHAHR too. YouTube Firehouse Subs and look at the end of the Hook and Ladder commercial. Sorry, using smart phone.
There's all sorts of words that will provoke debates like this. For example as far as I'm concerned, lord, gnawed, fraud, sword, moored, flawed and broad are all one syllable words that rhyme with each other. Flawed and floored are homophones.
For those who say fire is one syllable - what would it rhyme with? (I'm still having trouble figuring out how to pronounce it as one syllable...)
This is complete nonsense. Just because two vowels follow each other doesn't mean that there is one syllable. Even ire is pronounced 'aah-yuh' which is two syllables as you can see. It doesn't matter if there is two successive vowels; the syllable actually begins with the first letter of the word, it doesn't begin with vowel clusters. But what you're referring to is f-ire, meaning that the F doesn't connect i because re is pronounced differently than that of fire. So you end up with 'f-i-re, but when spoken, the i is pronounced with the f and the re sounds differently because it's followed by the i. The vowel alters the pronunciation of re. Take are for instance. That pronounced as one syllable, but ire is pronounced 'aah-yun' which has two syllables as the hyphen demonstrates. Even 'hour' can be argued to have two syllables. Though, that is more tricky, and I'm only 50/50 about that one. You should leave English to Englishmen and not Islamic universities.
But do they rhyme with higher and buyer? To me they do, but I'm in the two syllable camp. To me higher and hire are pronounced the same.
This thread is just begging for audio. We could have warnings for accents for those that are averse to certain locales.
Now comes this mornings crossword puzzle: Clue - Only one-syllable state capital. Answer - Pierre. Somebody run that triphthong thing by me again?
OK, guys and girls. So I came across something on YouTube called a Quahthong that apparently suggests that words with consecutive vowels, such as fire, actually contain five syllables. Apprently it's something to do with ire producing more than two sounds when pronounced. Check it out:
