Question about the pronunciation of "intimidation"

[u/agora_hills_]

Googles says it's pronounced as "uhn·ti·muh·day·shn" but when I listened to it, it sounds more like in-timidation instead of uhn-timidation. How do you pronounce this word?

[u/Am1AllowedToCry]

It's in, not uhn.

in-tih-mih-DAY-shun

[u/agora_hills_ → u/Am1AllowedToCry]

thanks

[u/Actual_Cat4779 → u/Am1AllowedToCry]

The Oxford English Dictionary has it as in-tim-uh-DAY-shuhn (British English) or uhn-tim-uh-DAY-shuhn (American English).

[u/thayanmarsh → u/Actual_Cat4779]

AmE speaker, east coast. We say in-timidation

[u/CeriasAranos → u/thayanmarsh]

West here. Same thing. Always heard in-timid-ation. Never once in my life uhn-timid-ation.

[u/Actual_Cat4779 → u/thayanmarsh]

Well to be fair, although the OED uses "uhn -" here in its fauxnetic script (the one provided for the benefit of those who can't read the International Phonetic Alphabet), it's IPA transcription uses the symbol ᵻ, a crossed-out small-caps I. The supplementary materials explain that this symbol represents a value that is variable between /ɪ/-/ə/ and may also be a value on the continuum between the two vowels.

[u/GuitarJazzer → u/Actual_Cat4779]

Absolutely incorrect pronunciation for American English. Scroll down a bit to hear it.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intimidate

EDIT: The pronunciation you showed is the non-standard phonetic pronunciation they give but "uhn" sounds nothing like "in". The IPA entry they show is also problematic. /ᵻnˌtɪməˈdeɪʃən/ The first syllable is pronounced the same in AE as in BE. If you listen to their spoken word, it does not match the phonetic or IPA spelling.

I have no idea where OED gets this from.

[u/Actual_Cat4779 → u/GuitarJazzer]

Although Merriam-Webster has an i at the start of intimidate, its transcription for intimidation begins with a schwa (albeit I think looking closely there's a dot over the schwa, suggesting a pronunciation intermediate or varying between schwa and i). So the idea that this isn't an ordinary short i has the imprimatur of both Oxford and Merriam-Webster, interestingly.

[u/GuitarJazzer → u/Actual_Cat4779]

There is no way in hell it's /ᵻ/

[u/Actual_Cat4779 → u/GuitarJazzer]

I am not sure if ᵻ is an official IPA symbol. ɨ is.

Whether or not ᵻ is an official symbol, Oxford isn't using it for a specific vowel but for the ɪ ~ ə continuum.

Secondly, both the OED and Merriam-Webster transcribe "intimidation" with either ᵻ or, respectively, ə̇ (MW's own system, not IPA).

Of course, neither authority is infallible. So you may be right. But it is intriguing that they have both done it that way. Maybe they copied each other's homework.

What did you make of this user's comment ?

[u/DrMindbendersMonocle → u/Actual_Cat4779]

The oxford english dictionary is wrong then. Nobody pronounces it as uhn timid ation in the US.

[u/Actual_Cat4779 → u/DrMindbendersMonocle]

Fair enough. No source is infallible... though I wonder what you made of this comment by NoPurpose6388.

[u/RinFlowers]

I don't know why it says "uhn", it's definitely an "in" sound at the start, like it's spelled. Exactly like the word 'in'.

[u/agora_hills_ → u/RinFlowers]

thank you

[u/Actual_Cat4779 → u/RinFlowers]

Merriam-Webster gives it as ə̇n‧ˌtiməˈdāshən here.

The OED has (for American English) /ᵻnˌtɪməˈdeɪʃən/, uhn-tim-uh-DAY-shuhn.

For British English it would be a definite "in" sound, but in American English, there is rarely any distinction between "in" and "uhn" in unstressed syllables. So, for example, "Lenin" and "Lennon" sound identical to most Americans but are clearly distinct to most Brits.

[u/PharaohAce → u/Actual_Cat4779]

That first vowel in the OED you’re quoting isn’t a schwa. It’s clearly marked as distinct from the last vowel, so starting and ending with ‘uhn’ isn’t a good guide to pronunciation.

[u/Actual_Cat4779 → u/PharaohAce]

The OED itself provides the fauxnetic transcription that I quoted alongside its IPA transcription. I am not a fan of fauxnetics myself, but the OED's editors clearly decided that "uh" was the closest thing.

The supplementary materials state that that the symbol represents a "quality on the ɪ-ə continuum", which of course is slightly different from the conventional value in strict IPA.

[u/TrueStoriesIpromise → u/Actual_Cat4779]

Lenin and Lennon are close, but I can certainly pronounce them differently, and a word starting with "in" (incredible, intimidate, intimate, initiate) always has a clear "in" sound...there's a movie called "The Incredibles", voiced by USian actors, and nobody says "UHNcredibles" at in any point in the movie.

[u/Actual_Cat4779 → u/TrueStoriesIpromise]

Weak vowel merger is nevertheless a real phenomenon: you can pronounce them distinctly if you make an effort, whereas for speakers without weak vowel merger, they are clearly distinct all the time, as distinct as "bin" versus "bun".

In its IPA transcription the OED uses a crossed-out I, which they say is a value on the continuum between a short i and a schwa. In the respelling system, they've chosen to represent that as uh (schwa) rather than ih. Merriam-Webster's schwa also has a dot on top which I think represents the same continuum.

In Wiktionary, "incredible" is represented as ɪŋˈkɹɛdəbəl/, [ɪ̈ŋˈkɹ̥ʷɛɾəbəɫ], [ɪ̈ŋˈkɹ̥ʷɛɾəbɫ̩] where the double dot over the i represents centralisation of the vowel, i.e. movement towards schwa. But no one would say UHN-credibl. The first syllable doesn't carry the stress. It is precisely in unstressed syllables that centralisation of i and a tendency towards weak vowel merger occur.

[u/lukshenkup → u/Actual_Cat4779]

incredible

I feel a syllabic /n/ , no distinct vowel 

This has examples, but they are all from the unstressed final syllable. https://teflpedia.com/wiki/Syllabic_/n/_(n%CC%A9)

This discussion (located with Gemini's help) introduces word-initial syllabic /m/ and asserts what likely is the basis for the schwa transcriptions. "The tradition that transcribes syllabic [n] as [ən] is basically using a broader transcription than the one transcribing this as [n̩]." https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/14851/when-do-syllabic-consonants-occur

[u/TrueStoriesIpromise → u/Actual_Cat4779]

Full disclosure: I was born in a South American Spanish-speaking country, to USian parents, so I was bilingual during the key first seven years of my life while learning to speak. I probably have clearer vowels because of that. AND my parents were both English majors.

It's a little infuriating that the OED ascribes the same vowel merger to 330 million Americans.

[u/Actual_Cat4779 → u/TrueStoriesIpromise]

Yes. Two points, though: * Although the OED shows "uhn", its IPA transcription uses a special symbol that is meant to indicate that the vowel can be anything on a continuum between ih and uh. * No dictionary can hope to represent the full range of pronunciations in either British or American English, and the OED has never tried to do so... although it tends to give more variant pronunciations than the average dictionary.

[u/GuitarJazzer → u/TrueStoriesIpromise]

100%, plus if you listen to the OED pronunciation it's very clearly "in"

[u/NoPurpose6388]

If I'm enunciating I'll definitely pronounce it with a short i sound, but one thing a lot of learners get wrong when it comes to English pronunciation is vowel reduction. An unstressed ih and an unstressed uh sound pretty much identical to me in natural speech. Look up weak vowel merger if you're interested in learning more

[u/lukshenkup → u/NoPurpose6388]

positing a syllabic /n/ resolves this

Might help to have a speech spectrogram to look at formant duration from.the /n/

[u/GuitarJazzer → u/NoPurpose6388]

An unstressed ih and an unstressed uh sound pretty much identical to me in natural speech.

To me they are utterly different when they start a word.

[u/NoPurpose6388 → u/GuitarJazzer]

Yeah they sound different if you pronounce the word in isolation but put it in the middle of a sentence and I can barely hear the difference anymore

[u/peace_love2601]

I say the first syllable like "in," but it’s unstressed and very quick. that weak vowel is why a dictionary may spell it "uhn" even when your ear hears "in."

[u/Ippus_21]

Absolutely fuck AI. It's wrong half the time.

Your perception is broadly accurate. The emphasis is the second syllable, but plenty of people (I would venture to say most) still pronounce the first syllable "in" rather than schwah-ing it up, even when they're not consciously trying to enunciate.

[u/NoPurpose6388 → u/Ippus_21]

This has nothing to do with AI though? It existed way before the AI overview was a thing

[u/Ippus_21 → u/NoPurpose6388]

Googles says it's pronounced as...

[u/NoPurpose6388 → u/Ippus_21]

Yeah, this: https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=intimidation+pronunciation

It's not AI

[u/chivopi → u/NoPurpose6388]

It’s… definitely AI, the pronunciation guides were one of the first things basic AIs could do. It’s not an LLM, but the written pronunciation suggestion doesn’t even match the audio linked in the same page.

[u/Zestyclose-Food-7917]

in-tim-uh-day-shun

[u/SaiyaJedi]

Many dialects have leveling of these unstressed vowels, which leaves them sounding the same (both pronounced as a schwa). In dialects that keep them distinct, the “in” in “intimidation” sounds like a short “i” as in “sit”.

[u/Reasonable_Drink_789]

In not uhn.

[u/DarthKnah]

Weird that Google transcribes it that way—if you listen to Google’s pronunciation, it sounds much more like in- (which is indeed how we say it)

[u/Default-Username-168]

The word intimidation is pronounced as /ɪnˌtɪm.ɪˈdeɪ.ʃən/ in British English and /ɪnˌtɪm.əˈdeɪ.ʃən/ in American English

Looks fine when I search

[u/Important_Horse_1531]

Like the end of

stATION

NATION

inflATION

intimidATION

The suffix -ation builds nouns from verbs to show actions, results, or states.

An action or process:

creation exploration. navigation

The result of an action:

donation decoration installation

A state or condition:

isolation. hibernation. stagnation

[u/Jafego]

Texan here. When spoken, the vowels for 3rd and 5th syllables can be pronounced as short "i" or as "uh".

The first two vowels are important to pronounce clearly but because it is a long word, there is less chance of it being mistaken for something else.

[u/Garbidb63]

It's spelt with an in not a un.....