I'm more likely to say Umf than Mmf, but neither sounds incorrect to my
American ears.
As for "oeuvre", I've never heard anyone say this without at least
attempting to approximate the French pronunciation. Indeed, my American
Heritage Dictionary gives the oe symbol as the only option for
pronouncing this, oe being defined there as the sound in the French word
"feu", if that helps at all. Those of us who know French know that the
closest English sound is the wound of "wool", thus "wool" would be the
better candidate, for someone who insisted on using traditional English
vowel sounds.
But I must agree with the futility of attempting to impose any sort of
consistency on English spelling or pronunciation :-)
paul vandenbrink incurred the wrath of Bob on Sep 24, by saying
>
>Hi Everybody
>
>The silence is deafening.
>
>I take this to mean that
>the words oeuvre, oodles and oomph
>are all usually pronounced with the Shaw "Ooze" sound.
>Nobody except the wrathful aspect of Bob seems
>to disputing this.
>Is Wrathful a figment of Bob's fevered desire to impose some
>rationality or consistency on the use of English Vowels.
>Doomed to failure.
>
>Anybody care to disagree????
>Or even to throw their weight on to one side of the argument.
>
>Regards, Paul G.
>
>--- In shavian@..., "paul vandenbrink"
><pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:
>> Hi Craig
>>
>> That is interesting. You make me think that maybe whoops is really
>2
>> words with different pronunciation and a distinctly different
>meaning,
>> although with the same T.O. spelling.
>>
>> Whoops pronounced "wUps" is an interjection that we only say when
>we
>> drop/spill something to indicate the inadvertent action was an
>> accident and watch out below. It is a sentence all in itself.
>>
>> Whoops pronounced "wMps" seems to be a more general noun referring
>to
>> any loud cry or yelling noise. As in Indian war whoops or Whooping
>> Cough.
>>
>> As a practical phonetic aside, I notice that vowels tend to be much
>> more limited by consonants that make up the rest of the syllable,
>> than vice versa. As you can see from the examples, we have been
>> discussing, a lot of vowels are limited in which consonsants than
>the
>> can form syllables and words with and the positions they can take
>> within a syllable. For example, it is unusual to find Short vowels
>> except for the supremely short Schwa at the end of a syllable.
>>
>> Also most accent variation is in the vowel sounds.
>>
>> So consequently, Consonants are key (much more important) when you
>> are trying to recognize a word written in a Phonetic Alphabet.
>>
>> Regards, Paul V.
>>
>> P.S. So would everyone agree that the words oeuvre, oodles and
>oomph
>> are the exceptions that prove the rule.
>>
>>
>>
>> --- In shavian@..., "paul vandenbrink"
>> <pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:
>> > Hi Craig
>> > I like oeuvre, oodles and oomph, but as for the rest of suggested
>> > words,
>> > I don't think that they are well enough known to make good
>examples
>> > of those relatively rare initial word sounds. I would pronounce
>> > oeuvre, oodles and oomph as Mvra, Mdalz and Mmf. Umf is sort of
>> > acceptable but it doesn't have enough oomph or emphasis
>> > to really give me the needed oomph to get going.
>> > Thanks everyone, Regards, Paul V.
>> > ________________attached________________________
>> >
>> >
>> > --- In shavian@..., Craig Butz <shavian@w...> wrote:
>> > > In a previous episode, shavian@... said:
>> > >
>> > > >> P.S. Anybody else have some good examples of "Wool"
>> > > >> or "Ooze
>> > > >> beginning a word?
>> > >
>> > > ooze:
>> > > Oud (a musical instrument not recognized by microsoft)
>> > > oeuvre
>
>
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
--
Cheers,
Bob Schmertz
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