Yosemite ! how do you pronounce it ?

[tamati]

if you're ever looking for words that have double meanings, ambiguous meanings or just no meaning at all try politicians or bankers.

 

[teedee208]

Please note that in UK English, the word February is pronounced with the first 'r' sounded, unlike US English.

Other words that are not pronounced the way they appear:

- plumbing
- doubt
- Jose
- pneumonia
- Illinois
- psychology
- Des Moines
- knead
- Wednesday
- Jeopardy
- February
- receipt
- island
- asthma
- colonel
- zucchini

And many many more.

- Nick

 

[darkan9el]

My Sister was taught to spell words as they sounded, I think the system was called something like ATS but it screwed up her spelling for life. She used to spell said as sed, colour as culer, blue as bloo etc.

Read is a contextual word and although it has the same spelling it is the context that determines its meaning. There and their sound the same but having different meanings, where and wear are also confused.

1) The bandage was wound around his leg to cover his wound.

2) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

3) The dump was full, and had to refuse further refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) "No time like the present," he said. "It's time to present her the present."

8) A large-mouthed bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) Startled, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance on the invalid was invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about who could row the best.

13) We were too close to the door to close it.

14) When does are near, a buck does funny things.

15) Not watching their steps, a seamstress and a sewer fell into a sewer.

16) On her farm, a woman worked to produce produce.

17) She wanted to sow, but her sow ate the grain; so she chose to sew.

18) Next, she hitched her cow to a plough to make a trough.

19) Then she decided to combine her combines.

20) That evening, she told her beau to go slow.

21) But she shed a tear when she saw the tear in her dress.

22) I had to subject the subject to a test.

23) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

24) It might be wise to bow to a man with a bow.

25) John had to write to the right people to keep his rights during his rites.

26) The ewe with the flu knew who was due to get you through to the gnu with the number-two shoe, too!

 

[teedee208]

What about: I can't bear to look, I have just seen a bear.

Or (in UK English only) He should practise drawing as much as possible and with practice he will improve.

Fair comment chaps, there IS on word in the English language that has annoyed me for ever and ever.

It isn't the colour RED, it is the word READ !!!!!

"You can READ a book, after which you have READ the book"

the same word, used in both places, with a completely different sound and meaning !!!.

Tim

 

[Mikeeward]

Whilst we are on the subject of Apple's choice of names, how many different ways could Mavericks be pronounced in English and American?

 

[cowbrain]

My American friend told me how to pronounce Yosemite, some years ago. A pronunciation I was delighted to learn.
I wondered if that other National Park would be pronounced Yel-lo-ston-ee (to rhyme with colostomy)?

He never saw the funny side.
Maybe there wasn't a funny side.
Tickled me though.

English love (luv) to you all. CB

 

[Alwyn]

The origins of the name are interesting too. I spent part of my childhood in the 1940's Stateside. I remember we had a viewer into which you put a circular card with colour/color photographs which appeared as 3D images. I particular remember Yellowstone and Yosemite. Being English I then thought it was pronounced like Marmite.

I now know that it's the name of the native American tribe that once/still? lived/es? there.

 

[DougStocks]

My American friend told me how to pronounce Yosemite, some years ago. A pronunciation I was delighted to learn.
I wondered if that other National Park would be pronounced Yel-lo-ston-ee (to rhyme with colostomy)?

He never saw the funny side.
Maybe there wasn't a funny side.
Tickled me though.

English love (luv) to you all. CB

Ah yes; I had not thought of that, but a good one. Cheers! (another word whose meaning changes about mid-way across the Atlantic.). Or I should have said Cheers mate. That "mate" business really threw me my first few weeks in the UK.

 

[John F]

Yosemite National Park (yoh-sem-it-ee) is a United States National Park

great stuff, I have it now, thanks "vansmith" I can see now that it IS spelt completely different to the way it is spoken.

Tim

The Chaos

by G. Nolst Trenite' a.k.a. "Charivarius" 1870 - 1946


Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye your dress you'll tear,
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.
Exiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing.
Thames, examining, combining
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war, and far.
From "desire": desirable--admirable from "admire."
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.
Chatham, brougham, renown, but known.
Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,
One, anemone. Balmoral.
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel,
Gertrude, German, wind, and mind.
Scene, Melpomene, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rime with "darky."
Viscous, Viscount, load, and broad.
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's O.K.,
When you say correctly: croquet.
Rounded, wounded, grieve, and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive, and live,
Liberty, library, heave, and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven,
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police, and lice.
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label,
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.
Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rime with "shirk it" and "beyond it."
But it is not hard to tell,
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, and chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous, clamour
And enamour rime with hammer.
*****, hussy, and possess,
Desert, but dessert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants.
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rime with anger.
Neither does devour with clangour.
Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.
Font, front, won't, want, grand, and grant.
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger.
And then: singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rime with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth;
Job, Job; blossom, bosom, oath.
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual.
Seat, sweat; chaste, caste.; Leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut; granite, and unite.
Reefer does not rime with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, Senate, but sedate.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific,
Tour, but our and succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria,
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.
Say aver, but ever, fever.
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess--it is not safe:
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.
Heron, granary, canary,
Crevice and device, and eyrie,
Face but preface, but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ***, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust, and scour, but scourging,
Ear but earn, and wear and bear
Do not rime with here, but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk, and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation--think of psyche--!
Is a paling, stout and spikey,
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing "groats" and saying "grits"?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict, and indict!
Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally: which rimes with "enough"
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of "cup."
My advice is--give it up!

 

[Yodrak]

I did not understand what he said and he repeated it 4 times as well, it was much later I realised he WAS talking about YOS-E-MITE

No, YO-SEM-IT-E

Long O, short E, Short I, Long E

 

[cajundaddy]

Yes, good YT pronunciation of one of Americas great national parks and the origin of the name is indeed from the native American tribe that inhabited that area for thousands of years. Here is a brief history of it's origin:
Origin of the Word Yosemite — What does Yosemite mean? Naming Yosemite Etymology: where did the place name Yosemite come from?

 

[jimalton]

There are many words in english whose origin is non-english and something of their native pronunciation is kept after Anglicisation, and Yosemite is one of them.
As might be expected it is an American Indian word derived from the Miwok tribe of Northern California. It refers to another tribe who lived in the Yosemite Valley and means "those who kill". They were called this by the Miwok because the Yosemites were a tribe of renegades from other tribes, most notably the Mono Paiute, and the Paiute were traditional enemies of the Miwok.
The Yosemites themselves called their valley Ahwahnee (big mouth) and themselves Ahwahneechee (dwellers of Ahwahnee).
The valley was named Yosemite by L.H. Bunnell of the Mariposa Battalion in 1851 in honour of the tribe that they had just driven from the area.
By the way, there is an Ahwahnee hotel in the park, and Yosemite is a very big threat to North America since it is underlain by a very large magma plume that will probably erupt anytime in the next half a million years!

 

[pm-r]

Why not just forget its code name and its pronunciation and call it what it is - OS Ten/Ten.

Besides, it'll soon be OS 10.10.1, so should its codename change to reflect any update change, like to Yosemite+1? etc.??? Good grief, please nooooo!!!!

 

[MrMike6by9]

Pronounced to rhyme with 'Vegemite'!

When I was a kid living in Maryland, that's the way it looked to me.

 

[DougStocks]

My American friend told me how to pronounce Yosemite, some years ago. A pronunciation I was delighted to learn.
I wondered if that other National Park would be pronounced Yel-lo-ston-ee (to rhyme with colostomy)?

He never saw the funny side.
Maybe there wasn't a funny side.
Tickled me though.

English love (luv) to you all. CB

And then some words are pronounced the same on both sides of the Atlantic, but have diametrically opposite meanings. Something experienced by most Yanks during their first year in the UK is the phenomenon of insulting every dinner host they have by telling them that the dinner was "quite nice."

 

[Dysfunction]

And then some words are pronounced the same on both sides of the Atlantic, but have diametrically opposite meanings. Something experienced by most Yanks during their first year in the UK is the phenomenon of insulting every dinner host they have by telling them that the dinner was "quite nice."

Brilliant! Nice is a very weak adjective at any rate. IMO that is true on this side of the Atlantic as well.

 

[timmy_toad]

If Timmy you go into Yosemite's System preferences, under Desktop the first photo is a beautiful shot of Yosemite in colour.

I haven't got YOSEMITE installed yet , but I will get it when it comes out on public release, thanks.

Tim

 

[DougStocks]

Brilliant! Nice is a very weak adjective at any rate. IMO that is true on this side of the Atlantic as well.

Agreed, but as you probably know, the word 'quite' changes its meaning when it migrates from one side of the Atlantic to the other.

 

[Dysfunction]

Agreed, but as you probably know, the word 'quite' changes its meaning when it migrates from one side of the Atlantic to the other.

Quite so

I'd be well chuffed if verbal English wasn't so... Well, vague.

 

[waterug]

Unusual English Words

The word "raise" can have opposite meanings, did you know? You can raise the window upwards, but you "raise" the building into a mass of rubble. You wonder how these words ever came to be.