Iraq

[DrFaroohk]

How do you pronounce it?

First - Eye or Ear.

Second part - Rack or Rock?

I always said Eye-Rack, but I notice more and more people saying Ear-rock.

[Greenday]

The only people I've heard pronounce it ear-rock are newscasters. Everyone else I know calls it eye-rack.

[Andara Bledin]

You could just go to Wikipedia and check out how they have it pronounced.

^-.-^

[linguist]

in this case, that may not be too helpful. wikipedia has multiple pronunciations listed.

[Andara Bledin]

That tells me that multiple pronunciations are most likely acceptable.

People from the southern US see to tend to go with the eye-rack one. A large percentage of newscasters I've seen go with ih-rawk.

^-.-^

[Gravekeeper]

Ih-rawk is the "correct" pronounciation as that is how it is pronounced by a native Arabic speaker. Which is likely why newscasters use it. It may also irk Arabic speakers when you use Eye-Raq because to them you're placing weird emphasis on the wrong part of the word.

It'd be like them pronouncing United States as U-Knited States.

[DrFaroohk]

Do Arabic speakers even call it either of those? I've noticed that what we call a country isn't always what the people there call it.

[Greenday]

Do Arabic speakers even call it either of those? I've noticed that what we call a country isn't always what the people there call it.

Next time I see one of the LN's, I'll ask.

[Ginger Tea]

Just how the bleep am I meant to pronounce it?

Instead of a new thread that's similar but about more than one word (esp American/English options) I thought I would drop this in this here Iraq thread.

Some words were transfered in written form only with no guide to pronounciation, eg Aluminium, I remember one movie (with Rodney Dangerfield?) where they find a metal briefcase full of cash, when asked how they made their money in some rich mans club he says "A loo min um" and I ask my dad what that is and he says "Al u min i um" so either it was changed along with alot of words by Merriam/Webster or it was a word that was sent around the globe with no guide on how to say it.

Although every time I hear Ve Hik el I keep on wanting to tell the TV to take a deep breath and hold it for 10 seconds to get rid of the hiccups.

Warsaw, we say it as we see it, but its pronouced more Va sha va, I forget exactly but its the Polish W=V, yet the BBC insisted on saying Warsaw and not being propper even though they normally go out to use the correct way for other words.
Mind you we say Paris instead of Paree and Germany instead of Doitchland (I know its misspelt but more phronetic).

I used to think the band Bush did the song I Alone, as it kinda sounded like them and I only ever heard the song in a metal nightclub and they were not known for saying which band was just on.
Now the band is called Live, now is that pronounced Live as in Liver or Live as in Lie v, you can see how visually they are the same so I have no idea.
One guy asked if I wanted to borrow a DVD of AC/DC Liv(er) in Donnington, I didn't feel like correcting him on it being lie v as he might start saying that one for the other one in other instances.

Working with alot of Eastern european's I get to hear English as seen through other ways of pronouncing words
Apple became Ap leh as TBH if you are not to know, thats how it looks

[Andara Bledin]

Aluminum is a regional alternate to aluminium. We don't use the word aluminium in the US, for example, thus an American movie would say aluminum, instead.

I'm with you on vehicle. The h is silent in US English.

Warsaw is the English name for the city. Just as with saying Paris and Germany, it's because if you used the actual name, it would just confuse people. I bet they say Finland and not Suomi, too.

As far as I know, Live is with a long i. "I Alone" is an awesome song. I got that CD for my mom when it was still getting regular airplay.

As for my own words:

I was rather older than I'd like to admit when I found out that Yo-seh-mite was the same place as Yosemite.

Vice versa is a common one that has been changed. It's supposed to be vee-chay ver-sa, being Latin and all, but nobody actually does that in English that I know of.

There are a lot of what I call "read words." They're words that you might read in a book, but that pretty much never come up in typical conversation, so there's no way to know how to pronounce them.

^-.-^

[Ginger Tea]

I actually found throwing copper in a shop (brand new) last year and bought it for about £7, thus far I've only listened to I alone