Re: Pro's & Kin's

["rogerkirk" <rogerkirk@mail.ttlc.net>]

Richard Chonak requested:

>I'm not sure what's wrong or affected about the pronunciations Roger 
>lists.  Could he perhaps post the list again with an indication of 
>what he would consider more normal in each case?

Glad to oblige.  But, rather than offer just what I consider more normal, here are the pronunciations from the 11th edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary (www.M-W.com.) 

Announcer:             Word:               Merriam-Webster:
kin-VIC-shin           (conviction)        k&n-'vik-sh&n
kin-TROLL              (control)           k&n-'trOl
kin-EK-shin            (connection)        k&-'nek-sh&n
kin-VEEN-yintz         (convenience)       k&n-'vEn-y&n(t)s
kin-GRAD-jih-lay-shin  (congratulation)    k&n-"gra-j&-'lA-sh&n
kin-GRAD-jih-lay-shin  (congratulation)    k&n-"gra-ch&-'lA-sh&n
kin-ET-ih-kit          (Connecticut)       k&-'ne-ti-k&t

In each case, the announcers (I refer to) clearly pronounce the "o" in 'con' as "i" in "tip", "banish" or "active".  Whereas, in all the dictionary pronunciations, the "o" is pronounced as the first/last "a" in "banana" or the "a" in "abut" - a.k.a. the "shwa" sound represented here by the "&" and elsewhere as an upside-down 'e' - difficult to represent in text e-mail.

Please note: M-W offers (where applicable) alternative pronunciations to accomodate British-American differences, three major dialect regions of the U.S., Canadian-American differences, pronunciations peculiar to certain spheres of activity and predicatable variations that cut across the boundaries of geographical dialects.

However, in the above list, except for congratulation, M-W only lists one pronunciation for each word. Their online audio pronunciation  sounds as I would have expected it to.

For a discussion of how M-W derives the "correct" pronunciation of a word, please refer to:  http://www.m-w.com/pronguid.htm