Inspired by a mistake just heard on German radio, I thought I’d discuss the correct pronunciation of Arkansas. The correct British pronunciation is [ɑːkənsɔː], whereas the correct American pronunciation is [ɑːrkənsɔː] or the less common [ɑːkənsɑː]. You can listen to the first two variants here. Importantly, in all of these variations, the s at the end
Many authors believe that they can impress their readers by using words which are not part of the every-day language. This is particularly true in scientific writing where, in addition to words specific to the field and in general unknown to outsiders, authors often use English words that have simpler forms with exactly the same
Yo is certainly one of the most unusual words I come across as an Austrian in Germany. In fact, I am not even sure how it is spelled, because the Duden has nothing to say about either Yo or Jo, and I did not find it in any other dictionaries either. The spelling Yo chosen
The word thru is an informal abbreviation for through, and hence not part of the standard English language. Therefore, it is not acceptable in formal writing. Interestingly though, thru has become so widely used that you can often see it used in internet communication and text messaging. And of course there is the drive thru,
Today, I want to cover a topic that has been suggested by Gerrit, a follower of my blog on FB. He pointed out that German native speakers (and quite likely also people with other native languages) sometimes have difficulties getting the pronunciation of the syllable ‘ey’ right. For example, in the words Disney, Kinsey, hockey,
Typos happen whenever something is written. Even spell checkers and proof reading can not always eliminate all mistakes, for example when the misspelled word is also a valid word in the language used (but with a different meaning). Among the countless boring typos, there are some which stand out, because they transform a regular sentence
For whatever reason, many people tend to confuse the apostrophe ’ with the symbol ` when writing. Some typical examples are it`s, don`t, let`s instead of it’s, don’t, let’s The use of ` instead of ’ is quite surprising because on an English keyboard, the apostrophe is much easier and faster to type. Using either
@GrammarGirl @BryanAGarner In German it is quite common among pregnant women to abbreviate “Schwangerschaft” (pregnancy) as SS. — painfulenglish (@painfulenglish) June 18, 2013
Although I love the English language, I do not appreciate the (unnecessary) overuse of English words in German. Hence, I try to avoid words such as Beamer (Projektor), Handy (Mobiltelefon) or Headset (Kopfhörer). Today, I overheard two inspiring conversations featuring anglicisms I had not heard before. The first was Wir können ja wieder disconnecten referring
The pronunciation of Chicago, home of Al Bundy and Al Capone, seems to be tricky for many non-native speakers. The problem is that the ‘ch’ is not pronounced as in words such as change, chance or chocolate. Instead, it is pronounced like the ‘ch’ in champagne or chandelier. The phonetic spelling is [ʃˈɪkɑːɡəʊ] or, also,