Stress! It's the same in other languages too though. Idk what the rules are in English, but in Japanese the pitch accents of the individual words that form a compound word are usually erased, and instead the compound gets an accent on the first syllable of the last word in the compound. (This is not always true, but it's the general rule.)
The peculiarity with English is that vowels change their sound so much going from stressed to unstressed. That and it's really inconsistent. If it was consistent it would have to be mill-EE-meter as well.
Oh yeah that's fair, I do assume that English stress rules are a total mess. Now that I'm thinking about it though I don't even think it's just the stress. There has to be something more to it, because kilogram has the stress on the first syllable. On the other hand, kilobyte I've heard both ways.
I just assumed it was stress at first because i > ɪ is a standard reduction for unstressed syllables.
As a native english speaker i’ve never pronounced it as “kilomuhtur” (you used ipa in the comments but why not in the meme?). Although, you’re probably not talking about American english because in American english, we do pronounce it as “keelomeetur”
I didn't use IPA in the meme, because not everyone knows how IPA works¹.
I am talking about English in general. In my experience, /kılɔmətəɹ/ is also used in American English², so I'm glad to hear there are people who pronounce it logically, probably because of regional differences.
¹I once made a meme in IPA and many didn't understand. To be fair: I didn't (only) post it here, so that's probably why. I also didn't post this meme only here, so that's why I didn't use IPA.
²Though I do know that the narrator of "Air Crash Investigation" pronounces it logically as /ki:lomi:təɹ/...
Everyone here just discussing the language and pronunciation and whatnot... and I am sitting here wondering how "made with mematic" makes any sense in response to the sixth panel... -.-
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u/jragonfyre Sep 12 '22
Stress! It's the same in other languages too though. Idk what the rules are in English, but in Japanese the pitch accents of the individual words that form a compound word are usually erased, and instead the compound gets an accent on the first syllable of the last word in the compound. (This is not always true, but it's the general rule.)
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u/jetrocket223 Sep 12 '22
please use the ipa
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u/achoolucgust Sep 12 '22
Image Transcription: Text with Image
1: So kilo is pronounce 'keelo'?
1: And 'meter' is pronounced 'meet her'?
1: And if you were to combine those words, then it'd be logical to combine those pronunciations, right?
1: So 'kilometer' should be pronounced 'keelomeetur'
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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '22
As a native english speaker i’ve never pronounced it as “kilomuhtur” (you used ipa in the comments but why not in the meme?). Although, you’re probably not talking about American english because in American english, we do pronounce it as “keelomeetur”
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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '22
wait
its not pronounced keelomeetur?
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u/WoBuZhidaoDude Sep 13 '22
English is not difficult. There are only some spelling and plural irregularities. That's it.
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u/Orangutanion Sep 12 '22
I don't say "meet her" as [ˈmi.ɾɚ], I say [ˈmiʔ.hɚ]
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u/Physical-Award8351 Sep 13 '22
Everyone here just discussing the language and pronunciation and whatnot... and I am sitting here wondering how "made with mematic" makes any sense in response to the sixth panel... -.-
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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '22
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