By happenstance, I stumbled upon the words cha, char and chai in the dictionary today, all defined as meaning tea in informal British English. I lived and worked in London for some time, …

Sep 14, 2013 · I, having lived most of my life in the American South, have heard this expression a lot (though I would tend to spell and pronounce it "'preciate 'cha" I.e. "Preeshee-a-chuh"). …

Closed 10 years ago. I am puzzled on how to pronounce cha- words. For example, I know that "chameleon" or "chamomile" are pronounced with a hard "c" like in "camel", not with a soft "c" …

Dec 10, 2010 · Gotcha actually has several meanings. All of them can be derived from the phrase of which this is a phonetic spelling, namely " [I have] got you". Literally, from the sense of got = …

Jun 12, 2021 · Are these words examples of elision? What effect do they create? If a child says them what does this suggest about their language development? Thanks for any help!!

Feb 13, 2016 · I realize some native speakers will create a new sound when linking s/z and y [j]. For example: Miss you = [mɪʃuː] "mishu" As you = [/æʒuː] "azhu" Is it okay if I just say [mɪsjuː] …

For a more comprehensive discussion of English spelling and pronunciation quirks, see Hou tu pranownse Inglish. It misses a few subtleties (like the ch in machine), but overall it's a nice …

Apr 4, 2017 · The pronunciation of ch as /k/ is generally found in words borrowed from Greek (where the ch stands for the Greek letter chi). See Wikipedia: English words of Greek origin: …

Feb 5, 2014 · I have been hearing the expression "bang for you buck" many times a day and I find myself distracted when I or others use it. In an effort to be an attentive listener, what is a good …

There is no hard-and-fast rule to indicate when ch is hard or soft, unfortunately. The main difference is in the origin of the word. English is a melting pot of many different languages: …