PinkPanther_04

I have a hard time with "rural," which stinks because I grew up in a semi-rural area. The r's are too close together I think.

MollyMac

Crossed wires, AJ and phrog. I meant you leave out the 'L' when pronouncing 'solder'. Sorry I didn't make that clearer.

Sometimes I suck at expressing myself.

ETA: Now why is the second 'i' in aluminium "superfluous"?

Unbeatable

I thought that was the way it was pronounced outside of the US.

MollyMac

Exactly! It is pronounced more phonetically in other varieties with five syllables and the stress is on the third syllable. That's why I said the American pronounciation is weird. Why pronounce it aloominum?

three4jump

Apparently I can't pronounce my own last name properly. Every time someone asks my name, I just get a blank stare, so I am in the habit of spelling it before they have to ask. It's not a difficult or foreign name. There's a famous person and a famous town of the same name. If I let the person figure it out for himself, it will inevitably be spelled wrong. It's spelled exactly how it sounds, but I guess I just can't say it right.

EverLastingGodStopper

My husband's older brother can't pronounce our last name properly, either. He tells people that "Rael" is pronounced in one syllable as "rail" but the rest of the family says it in two syllables: "RAY-ul." (He also thinks that the Urantia book is the one true word of God, so, consider the source...)

Also, I pronounce "aluminum" as "a-LOO-min-um" and so does everyone I know. I don't know any Americans who use the UK spelling "aluminium" or the UK pronounciation.

phrog

Oh wow, I was thinking of the Uratnia Book the other day and was thinking of starting a thread. I tried to read that when I was a teen, It made the Bible seem reasonable. But then most of it was over my head. I just knew this guy who I admired, probably just because he was in MENSA, and he was a member fo the Urantia Society as well. Just goes to show you, smarts aren't everything.

allwords.com has both spellings but only pronounces the aluminium spelling with their sound program.

http://www.allwords.com/wavpage.php?...=aluminium.wav

Perhaps my FIL was a Brit and din't know it.

Kassiana

FYI, it's spelled aluminum. There is no second "i" in the word when it is spelled correctly.

EverLastingGodStopper

This is only true in the USA.

Read: http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/aluminium.htm

Kassiana

Fortunately, that's where I am, so I am indeed correct. Just like I spell honor, sulfur, and savory correctly.