this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
248 points (93.7% liked)
Asklemmy
43943 readers
898 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Macabre. Why do you need two silent letters?
Blame the French.
Please wait in the queue with four unpronounced letters
I always pronounce this "quayway"
What you spelled there would be pronounced key-way haha
British English voices those letters in most accents. I think the two silent letters is just a North American thing.
Similar to herb.
Not saying you're wrong at all, it's not exactly a common word to hear said out loud. But I've never heard anyone do this and the very idea of it blows my mind.
(NE England, here)
The last syllable is usually pretty subtle, like the br- in bread, but very quietly voiced. I'd say I hear it maybe 75% of the time I hear the word. Currently in Yorkshire, via SW England, London and NW England. The syllable is a lot less subtle in a West Yorks accent!
Did you learn French at GCSE level? Possibly there's a relationship between that and pronouncing the re like that in French-derived words. Cadre is another example. If it is related to learning French, then it's probably on the decline as French teaching is on the decline and foreign languages are no longer compulsory at GCSE.
Clearly I need to work this word into more conversations with people and listen closely! That said I only just found out recently that most of the country pronounces the middle weekday as "Wensday" so contrary to stereotypes I think we might be the ones talking properly up here ๐
(schools around me were generally an even split between French and German for GCSE, dunno how that affects your theory, also I had no idea languages were going away from school and this makes me sad to learn)
Why use a French word then?
"queue", 4/5 letters are silent.
Ma-carb, much better
Wait how is that pronounced? I've always read it as Mah-Ca-Burr. It's one of these words I learned through text exposure rather than English classes...