''z'' or ''s'' in the American languag


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Lol Y'all make me laugh.

In the U.S and pther places that use the same spelling and pronounciation use what is called phonetic english where words are spelt the way they are pronounced.

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What??

YOU made me laugh.

If English sounded as it's written then you would pronounce though more like enough.

You can also pronounce "a" in many ways dependeing on where in the word it's located.

Does the "a" in "father" sound anything like the "a" in "located"?

There are lots of examples like those.

Languages that are pronounced the way they are written are Italian or Spanish, for example.

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I speak several languages and let me just reassure you that ALL forms of written English are equally mind-numbingly flawed :yes:

I sometimes wonder how one even learns how to properly spell in English, since there is no definite structure or pronounciation.. Take the words "Nike" and "Bike". Why do these two sound completely different even though they are structured completely the same? And staying on those lines, "Nike", believe it or not, is the properly spelled one, theoratically... In most languages a vowel makes the preceeding letter sound like the vowel. Therefore, the E in the end should make an eee sound. Nye-Keee. And don't get me started on C sounding like a K, or the amount of things an X can sound like :x

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hoi? I live in Canada, and I use 'colour', 'centre' and the like.

I don't really think much distinction can be made between the actual pronunciation of color vs. colour, unless you are going to get really technical and put a french-ish accentuation on it.

y'know what's weird?  I just went to my websters dictionary, and then dictionary.com to double-check, and there was NO etymology for the origins of the word 'basic' :s???

yyyyyep, the 'pure' form of a language that is a conglomeration of angle, saxon, Latin, French & Jersiais, and who-knows what-all else...

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("beIsIk) [f. base n.1 + -ic.]

[a. F. base (12th c. in Littr?):?L. bas-is, a. Gr. b0ri| a stepping, also that on which one steps or stands, pedestal, base, f. ba- ?walk, go.? The ME. spellings bas, baas, basse, indicate confusion with base a., which, in Fr., is distinct in origin and pronunciation.]

I. The lowest or supporting part.

* generally.

1. The bottom of any object, when considered as its support, or as that on which it stands or rests.

2. a. fig. Fundamental principle, foundation, groundwork.

?b. Ground of action or attitude. Obs.

c. A notional structure or entity conceived of as underlying some system of activity or operations; the resources, etc., on which something draws or depends for its operation. Usu. with preceding n., as customer base, power base, (and in technical application) database, knowledge base, etc.

** spec. and techn.

3. Arch. a. The part of a column, consisting of the plinth and various mouldings, between the bottom of the shaft and top of the pedestal, or, if there is no pedestal, between the shaft and the pavement.

b. The plinth and mouldings which form the slightly projecting part at the bottom of the wall of a room. c. The lowest course of masonry in a building.

4. A pedestal.

?5. A socket. Obs.

6. In mechanical arts: a. in Printing, The bottom or footing of letters. b. in Gunnery, The protuberant rear-portion of a cannon, between the knob of the cascabel and the base-ring.

c. Electr. One of the three electrodes of a transistor. Also attrib.

7. Bot. and Zool. That extremity of a part or organ by which it is attached to the trunk; e.g. the part of a leaf adjoining the leaf-stalk, of a pericarp adjoining the peduncle, of a thumb adjoining the hand.

8. Her. The lower part of a shield; spec. the width of a ?bar? (or fifth part of the shield's height) parted off from the bottom by a horizontal line.

9. a. Geom. That line or surface of a plane or solid figure on which it stands, or is considered to stand, Thus:?of a triangle, any one side in respect of the other two; of a cone or pyramid, the circle or polygon remote from its apex; of a cylinder or prism, the lower of the two circles or equal polygons which form its ends.

?b. distinct base in Optics: focal distance. Obs.

10. Fortification. The imaginary line which connects the salient angle of two adjacent bastions.

II. The main or most important element or ingredient, looked upon as its fundamental part.

11. a. generally.

b. Cosmetics. A substance used as a foundation.

12. Dyeing. A substance used as a mordant, by which colours are fixed in the material dyed.

13. Mod. Chem. The electropositive compound body, whether metallic oxide (sulphide, selenide), hydrate, or alkaloid, which enters into combination with an acid to form a salt; the correlative of acid, including, but having wider meaning than, alkali.

14. Gram. The form of a word to which suffixes are attached; the theme.

III. That from which a commencement of action or reckoning is made, regarded as a fundamental starting-point.

15. a. The line or limit from which the start is made in a race, or which serves as a goal for the finish. b. The fixed line or ?goal? across which players endeavour to strike the ball in such games as hockey. c. The fixed points or stations round which the striker at rounders has to run, and at any of which he is allowed to stay; esp. in Baseball, each of the four stations at the angles of the ?diamond?, all of which the batsman has to touch in succession in order to score a run. Phr. base on balls, an advance to first base allowed to the batsman when the pitcher has delivered four balls outside the strike zone.

d. fig., in various expressions in U.S. slang, as off one's base, wildly mistaken, crazy, mad; to get to first base: to achieve the first step towards one's objective.

16. a. Mil. The line or place upon which the general of an army relies as a stronghold and magazine, and from which the operations of a campaign are conducted. Also transf. to other operations.

b. Similarly, an air or naval station.

17. Surveying. A line on the earth's surface or in space, of which the exact length and position are accurately determined, and which is used as a base (sense 9) for trigonometrical observations and computations.

18. Math. The number from which, as a definite starting-point, a system of numeration or logarithms proceeds.

IV. Comb. and attrib.

19. General relations: a. appositive (= forming a base), as base-colour, -line, -plate, -squadron, -unit; in sense 16, base camp, censor, port, ship, wallah. b. attrib. (= belonging to, or situated at, the base), as base-course, -moulding (see 5b), -shoot, -table.

20. a. Special combinations: baseboard, a board situated at or forming the base; spec. (chiefly U.S.) a skirting-board; baseboard heating, heating of a room by means of heat supplied to the skirting-boards; base box = basis box (basis III); base-burner, a furnace or stove in which the fuel is supplied to the fire automatically from a hopper as the lower stratum is consumed; base hospital Mil., a hospital at some place distant from the area of active operations; base level, spec. in Phys. Geogr. (see quots.); hence base-levelled ppl. a., brought to base level; base-line (see quot. and cf. 16, 17); also in Perspective, the common section of a picture and the geometrical plane, and in Gunnery, a line traced round a cannon at the rear of the vent; also fig.; cf. also quot. 1802; base-load (see load n.); base-point, in Her., the middle point of the base (see 8); base rate (see quot.); base-ring, (a) a moulding on the breech of a cannon between the base and the first reinforce; (b) a projecting circular base; applied attrib. to a type of late Bronze Age pottery from Cyprus; ?base-square (see quot.).

b. In Baseball, as base-bag, -player, -playing, -stealer, -stealing (cf. steal v.1 5g); base hit, a hit from which the ball cannot be fielded in time to prevent the batsman from reaching his base; base-line, (a) the line, three feet wide, marked on the turf from base to base of a baseball field; (b) the line at each end of a lawn-tennis court, also attrib., as base-line game, driver; hence base-liner, one who drives from the base-line, also a base-line drive; base-runner, in Baseball, the player who, having made a fair hit or in other contingencies specified in the rules, is running the bases; so base running vbl. n.

c. Chem. base exchange, a reaction in which atoms of one chemical base in a compound substance are replaced by those of another; also attrib. (Also called cation exchange.) So base-exchanger, a substance capable of such a reaction; base-exchanging adj.; base-rich a., rich in basic ions.

:)r />Here you go!! :)

For the others there is a massive distinction between "English" English, "Welsh" English, "Scottish" English and "Irish" English (These people are collectively British and there are stil:whistle:thers to boot! :whistle:

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I speak several languages and let me just reassure you that ALL forms of written English are equally mind-numbingly flawed :yes:

I sometimes wonder how one even learns how to properly spell in English, since there is no definite structure or pronounciation.. Take the words "Nike" and "Bike". Why do these two sound completely different even though they are structured completely the same? And staying on those lines, "Nike", believe it or not, is the properly spelled one, theoratically... In most languages a vowel makes the preceeding letter sound like the vowel. Therefore, the E in the end should make an eee sound. Nye-Keee. And don't get me started on C sounding like a K, or the amount of things an X can sound like :x

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I thought I would help you out with the spelling!

pronounciation: pronunciation

theoratically theoretically

preceeding preceding

:) :)

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I thought I would help you out with the spelling!

pronounciation: pronunciation

theoratically theoretically

preceeding preceding

:)  :)

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I don't nid help with speling, eye thinc ai've maid mai poyntt perphectlee kleer.. the mear phakt aye am aybel too readabli spehl this centence in sou mannie ways proovs it ;)

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Americans use 'z' in most words, e.g. organization.

British, Australians and maybe Canadians use 's', e.g. organisation, probably because they're all part of the Commonwealth.

I wouldn't say the British accent is the pure form of English, perhaps their spelling is.

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Again, I'm from Canada, and I say organiZation, not organi-sation. But then again, I say skedju-ul, not schedule, so lets take this outside! :ninja: :p

I speak several languages and let me just reassure you that ALL forms of written English are equally mind-numbingly flawed :yes:

I sometimes wonder how one even learns how to properly spell in English, since there is no definite structure or pronounciation.. Take the words "Nike" and "Bike". Why do these two sound completely different even though they are structured completely the same? And staying on those lines, "Nike", believe it or not, is the properly spelled one, theoratically... In most languages a vowel makes the preceeding letter sound like the vowel. Therefore, the E in the end should make an eee sound. Nye-Keee. And don't get me started on C sounding like a K, or the amount of things an X can sound like :x

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*sigh*... that is because 'Nike' isn't an 'english' word. It's a name, taken from either Greek or Latin, so it holds onto its original/more original pronunciation.

Though for the longest time I thought it was Nike (rhyme with Bike), until I learned the origins of the name. Now I know it is supposed to be NikE, but I still say Nike, cuz NikE just sounds weird to my ears.

p.s. Thx for finding that etymology Toejam (Y)

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it has been said my major philosophers, and english majors world around, that ENGLISH (any version, and all of them for that matter0 is the hardest language to learn... Simply put, I'm still learning the language, and I'm 25 *LOL* and been speaknig it for 24.5 years!!! *laughs*

But learning French, Spanish or Italian is a lot easier to do then learning English.

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But learning French, Spanish or Italian is a lot easier to do then learning English.

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I'll have to disagree with that, I'm a native spanish speaker and I can tell you from my own experience that learning english is not hard at all, comparing it to learning spanish or french (or any other latin language). :whistle::

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Take the words "Nike" and "Bike".

Well I don't know how you say it, but round these 'ere parts, Nike and Bike DO sound the same.

I guess that's because we pronounce it how it's written, and Americans pronounce it how they want it to sound?

It should be Nikey.

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it has been said my major philosophers, and english majors world around, that ENGLISH (any version, and all of them for that matter0 is thehardest> language to learn... Simply put, I'm still learning the language, and I'm 25 *LOL* and been speaknig it for 24.5 years!!! *laughs* 

But learning French, Spanish or Italian is a lot easier to do then learning English.

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Dude.. you have to be kidding. I speak and write both French and English fluently., and let me tell you that French is a lot harder to learn than English. For one, french nouns are either feminine or masculin. This means that:

le> garcon = the boy andla> fille = the girl

Do you see where I'm going with this? How do we know if we should use "le" or "la" with the word "fille"? Because, we actually had to learn if the word is either masculin or feminin.

It probably sounds easy since a boy is obviously masculin and girl is obviously feminine, right?

How about:

le> bureau = the deskla> table = the tablela> chaise = the chairle> tapis = the carpetune> pomme = an appleun> raisin = a grapeune> banane = a banana

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Dude.. you have to be kidding. I speak and write both French and English fluently., and let me tell you that French is a lot harder to learn than English. For one, french nouns are either feminine or masculin. This means that:

le garcon = the boy and

la fille = the girl

Do you see where I'm going with this? How do we know if we should use "le" or "la" with the word "fille"? Because, we actually had to learn if the word is either masculin or feminin.

It probably sounds easy since a boy is obviously masculin and girl is obviously feminine, right?

How about:

le bureau = the desk

la table = the table

la chaise = the chair

le tapis = the carpet

une pomme = an apple

un raisin = a grape

une banane = a banana

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I have always wondered what prupose gender based nouns served. Wheneve rI asked my Spanish professors the reason for them and what was an easy way to guess if unsure about gender, I was told it "just is". Not very helpful...

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I believe English is considered the hardest language in the world to learn because of the way it combines pronunciation rules, and spelling rules from several different languages. It has a large number of phonemes (sounds) and morphemes (the smallest unit of meaning in a word, i.e. pre, tri etc.) when compared to other languages.

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How do Americans spell "nuclear"?  Is it "nucular" or something?  I sometimes hear it said that way.  :huh:

:cat:

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its nuclear..

ok i've had enough. this is the most stupid, pointless, and re-****ing-diculous thread on neowin. nothing said on here is true.. i dont know where you people come up with these things... especially this nuclear comment. we speak english, NORMAL english... the only Americans that "desecrate" the language are black people ... and no that is NOT racist, its true..

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How do Americans spell "nuclear"?  Is it "nucular" or something?  I sometimes hear it said that way.  :huh:

:cat:

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The correct spelling is nuclear... it's just our _____ (insert adjective here) president can't say it right (and for some reason neither can anyone else). I don't understand why it is so hard to say NUCLEAR and not NUCULAR. It is actually one of those things that really irk me... that and the use of its and it's. :no:

BTW, I like your sig. :happy:

I have always wondered what prupose gender based nouns served.  Wheneve rI asked my Spanish professors the reason for them and what was an easy way to guess if unsure about gender, I was told it "just is".  Not very helpful...

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I've always wondered myself but being that I grew up in Miami and my first language was Spanish, I've never questioned the fact. I do find myself forgetting the gender of some words when I speak in Spanish now because I rarely speak it anymore unless I'm talking to my parents, grandparents, or anyone else in Miami (when I go home).

I believe English is considered the hardest language in the world to learn because of the way it combines pronunciation rules, and spelling rules from several different languages.  It has a large number of phonemes (sounds) and morphemes (the smallest unit of meaning in a word, i.e. pre, tri etc.) when compared to other languages.

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And that is why artificial intelligence programmers have had such a rough time creating natural language parsers. I took a class on AI and Natural Language understanding and about 80% of the grammer rules we were talking about in class I had never even heard of!!

One other thing I've noticed is that it is MUCH easier to spell words in Spanish than it is in English. I have some pretty crappy English spelling skills but the nice thing about Spanish is that you spell it just like it sounds!

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How do Americans spell "nuclear"?  Is it "nucular" or something?  I sometimes hear it said that way.  :huh:

:cat:

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The only reason you hear it that way is because our idiot president Bush doesn't even know how to speak his own language. It's pronounced "nuclear" in American English, not "nucular". Yes, I live in the USA and think Bush is an idiot.

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Umm... I don't think so... :huh:

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Everyone I know says it like that... how do you say it?

It's more like "ChI-knees" for the sound you're looking for capeche.

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