On Aug 5, 4:50 am, "Victor Bazarov" <v.Abaza...@comAcast.net> wrote:
> James Kanze wrote:
> > On Aug 3, 4:11 pm, joe <jgr...@DoubleTake.com> wrote:
> >> I think the problem is that 'char' is a word (meaning to scortch or
> >> partially burn) and some recognize it as that and use that
> >> pronunciation whereas others use the "It's the first four letters of
> >> character" rationale. I can't for the life of me figure out how
> >> 'car' gets into the mix as a pronunciation as that isn't related to
> >> anything.

> > It's how the first four letters in character are pronunced.
> > Very roughly, of course. (I'd say that the a in character was
> > somewhat more anterior than that in char. But it's certainly
> > not the [E:j] of care.)

> It's not [E:j], it's "er" in the US.

"Care" is pronounced with a dipthong in pretty much every
English dialect: it's [keIr]. (I would have expected the length
to be indicated, whence the : in my transcription. I also would
have expected the semivowel to have been represented by a [j],
and not [I], but I'm probably wrong there.)

> And, however strange it might sound, the word "character" has two
> pronunciations and the pronunciation of 'care' is the beginning of
> one of them. It can be specific to American English, though.

It must be an innovation in the last 30 or so years, then,
because it certainly wasn't the case when I was growing up in
America. The online American Heritage Dictionary doesn't seem
to know about it either. The word "care" is pronounced either
[keIr] (American) or [ke:@] (British). The word "character" is
pronounced ['k&r@ktR] (American) or ['k&r@kt@] (British). At
least according to the dictionaries I have access to, and from
my own experience (growing up in the United States, working with
many British people).

--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:james.kanze:gmail.com
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