Wednesday, October 21, 2009

WhereAwesomeHappens Public Service Announcement

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, AndyDisco on Twitter


Apparently uncertainty regarding the pronunciation of the large word above in boldface is rampant. Allow me to break it down phonetically- Chip. Ote. Lay. Notice how the "T" appears before the "L". A lot of people are under the impression that it is pronounced "Chip-OL-Tay". Had this been the intent of this restaurant chain, my guess is that the company would have placed the "L" before the "T", much like how if you wanted your name to be pronounced as "Frank" you probably wouldn't spell it as "Dave". Letters and their order, actually do affect the pronunciation.

Furthermore, please note that this word is not one of those wonky exceptions where letter sequencing should be tinkered with. The only conceivable instances of word order not mattering are words (most of them French in derivation) like 'Centre', 'Theatre', or 'Favre'.

The 'T followed by L' shouldn't scare native English speakers- most of us have a proven track record of this phoneme. Words like "Little", "Bottle", and "Motley" are never mispronounced as, "Lil-tay", "Bol-tay" and "Mol-tay".


Update: For further reading on this gripping subject, check this out. Apparently I wrote on this topic in July. I don't remember doing it, but it sounds like something I'd do.








That's how I roll.

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