[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Thicknesse: Question on Pronunciation

[Random832]

>>> Geoff:
>>> Two points.
>>>
>>> "Largesse" and "politesse" are pronounced differently, the former
>> having a soft `s' sound  and the latter hard.
>>> I pronounce all these words with the same `e' sound.
> Merriam-Webster, with respect, cannot legislate or dictate for 
> regional or national pronunciations. In addition to the two areas
> I mentioned above, I now live in the West Country which has a much 
> broader, rural dialect.

"hard 's' sound" has no consistent meaning. Most commonly in google 
results, one is /s/ and the other is /z/, but there's no consistency on 
which is which, and it's roughly evenly split. More rarely, the 'ss'/B 
thing in german is referred to as a hard s (with normal s being soft), 
'sh' is referred to as soft (with normal s being hard). So, which do you 
mean here?

> For example, we have had discussions on this group over examples 
> like Sirius/serious where US speakers, apparently, use the same 
> pronunciation  whereas native UK speakers can distinguish between
> the two.

Despite the comparatively narrow range of dialectal variation in the US 
as compared to the UK (I rather doubt that ALL "native UK speakers" 
distinguish them), there are at least some US dialects that keep the 
distinction. (for me, "serious" has a slightly longer sound for the 
first vowel). It is close enough for a pun, though.

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