Pronunciation

[corinthum <kkearney@students.miami.edu>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52594


> As for Sirius, again as a result of my school Latin, and other
>education, 
> the first "i" is short (like "inn") . I never imagined any other way
>of 
> saying it (and have never heard anyone else say it differently).
>That 
> Americans seem mainly to pronounce it SEE-rius comes as an err...
>serious 
> ... shock. :-)

I've actually never heard anyone pronounce the "i" quite that long.  I
always pronounced it /i../ (like in near, here, serious), but I think
that simply due to sloppyness on my part.  I don't know about the
British accent, but in American English the phonomes /i../ and /i/ (as
in sit, hit) tend to blend together in the combination ir.

Sorry if I screwed up the ACSII versions of the IPA; I'm pretty sure
the actual fonts wouldn't show up here though.  Too bad, that might
clarify some of this.  :)

-Corinth