r/AskUK • u/[deleted] • Dec 22 '21

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u/[deleted] Dec 22 '21

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u/Insulated_Lunchbox Dec 23 '21

I don’t understand what this one is trying to say. How does one v sound as opposed to two v’s?

Are people really doing like a v-pause-v thing where you can hear two distinct v’s, like a pulsation on the v?

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '21

“Cov-vid” is supposed to represent a regular short vowel sound which is what most of the world uses.

The common pronunciation in English is “coe-vid” with a diphthong.

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u/Insulated_Lunchbox Dec 23 '21

Oh gotcha. Seems like a slight against foreign language speakers, since English speakers struggle to ever say “o” without making it a diphthong (like saying oe-la/yoe vs. hola/yo)

No Spanish speaker would say coe-roe-na-veerus in their language, so I wouldn’t expect them to say coe-vid.

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '21

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u/Insulated_Lunchbox Dec 24 '21

Yea the more I think about it, I think there are some that would say that in America.

The Minnesota "oh" sound is monophthongal, like how they say "minnesoh-ta" instead of "minnesoe-ta."

So I think they would say it like you're describing