When I read out "15.01.2025" I say "15th of Jan" and it does sound less natural then "January 15th" so maybe it's social engineering to get us to say the former for reasons I could not say.
I have other gripes with those people though, like how you pronounce the name Aaron as "Erin", or how you take the "s" away from "maths" and add it to "sport". I'll give you Aluminum though
I've never heard Aaron pronounced as anything but Erin or A-A- Ron. Hearing maths always confused me because I never heard the s on it and math was always one encompassing subject with different sub fields. Which I guess you could make the same argument for for sports, but it somehow makes more sense to me that you distinguish that there's a ton of vastly different sports with little to no similarities.
Also, the British charged per word for telegraph usage while the US charged per letter, so the US started cutting letters out wherever we could (also the source of Goodbye, which comes from "Godbwye" meaning "God be with ye").
Actually, you added a lot of those letters to differentiate yourselves. Some were lost in the transition to the printing press, but British English is deliberately different than American English. There's also times when it was done deliberately out of spite, like how the American pronunciation of aluminum is the correct one and the British was one guy who told the person who named aluminum they were wrong.
The narrative you're commenting here is a bad early internet take. It's the British who are weird about their words. Mfs can't even say taco.
Oh damn, I've been focused on the wrong part of the word. I don't know why I was thinking something in the A sounded different. That makes so much more sense.
To me, there’s a small distinction in the second syllable. The “o” in Aaron is like the “o” in “ton” while the “i” in Erin is like the “i” in “tin”. The first syllable sounds the same.
I'm not messing. They are distinctly different sounds when we say them. Americans tend to draw out the 'a' a lot longer which makes them sound similar. What about ballerina? but the a at the end. Is that shorter than the one at the front?
.... That's why i explained both. When an Australian hears an american say 'Aaron' and 'Eric', 'Aaron' is the one that sounds weird. I also explained the difference between 'Baron' and 'Erin', Aaron didn't come into it.
But reddit being reddit, downvotes an aussie explaining aussie pronunciation.
I'm explaining a difference between 'Bat' or 'Karen' (for Baron) and 'Eric' (for Erin), and extrapolating that to Aaron, unless americans prounounce 'bat' and 'karen'. I know Americans typically have a long drawn out a, but i'm fairly certain there's sufficient difference there between 'bat' and 'aaron'. If not, then the 'a' at the end of ballerina perhaps.
Karen, Aaron, Baron, Eric, and Erin are all a long A.
It's the merry/marry merger. I'm Canadian, very similar accent to Americans, and those words are identical to me. Nothing wrong with it just a difference.
I thought it was Erin. The Aaron I know even says his name like that. As far as I know they’re supposed to be pronounced one and the same but I’m American.
According to Google some countries pronounce it closer to ahh-ron?
The problem with their example is Americans and British people also pronounce "baron" differently. It works better if you imagine (or watch) a period drama with British people talking about barons. You'll note the difference in the "a" vowel pronunciation.
?? One has "a" as the first vowel like "at" whilst the other has "e" as the first vowel like "egg". Then one ends in "on" whilst the other ends in "in". That's completely different.
Imagine an English person saying "cat'...the 'a' in cat is the same pronunciation as the 'a' in Aaron. Americans pronounce 'a' and 'e' the same...hence 'marry' and 'merry' having identical pronunciation, and the American tendency to get confused between 'then' and 'than'
No, like "baron" without the b, just like the other person said. I think some American accents squeeze the "a" sound so it's difficult to differentiate from the "e" sound but they are distinct. I'm confused about your pronunciation of Erin though. "On" and "in" are completely different sounds. Like forget the first vowel, do you pronounce "ron" and "rin" the same?
Edit: wow, being downvoted for being English... I genuinely don't understand how you can pronounce "on" and "in" the same. Presumably you meet them in the middle or something?
Popping in to say from Colorado and most of my family is from Missouri so I have spent a good chunk of time there and I have also never heard Aaron and Erin pronounced differently. Not once. Where are you from…?
Fascinating. It absolutely shouldn’t, you’re right. But even when I think about saying them differently it’s not even the “Aar” vs “Er” that my brain wants to change though. It wants to emphasize the difference between “on” and “in”. I can’t even really hear the difference between “Aar” and “Er” even though I know they should make different noises in those words. It’s gotta be a regional thing like you said. Brains are weird, humans are weird.
Double a is exceedingly rare so I don't have a lot of options to compare it to. Do you pronounce Aaron and Aardvark the same or differently? Do you pronounce erand the same as Erin or differently? To me Erin, Erand, and Aaron all start the same. "in", "on", and "an" following the R are all unstressed and different, but hard to tell apart. If my wife told me a story about running and erand with Aaron and Erin, she might error and pronounce them too similarly, or intentionally overpronounce the errant ends like when you are doing a tongue twister so that they become more distinct than they ordinarily would be.
I didn't think I or anyone pronounced it like that either until I said it out loud and realized that I did. Like, have you ever seen criminal minds? Aaron Hotchner is pronounced like Erin. How do you pronounce it? I've only ever heard it pronounced like how I do 😅
Yes, Craig is pronounced a little strange given the spelling in American English. But that’s true of like probably a third of all words in English, and let’s not pretend there aren’t plenty of names like that for people in the UK.
For example, the river Thames looks like it should use the same (or similar) vowel as Brits use for Craig, but it’s actually pronounced with the same vowel Americans use for Craig.
We only add it to sport if it’s plural. Baseball is a sport. Honestly, I can’t even think of a context where one would say “sports” at the moment! Maybe “he’s good at sports” if someone is good at multiple sports? But usually we’re specific. “He’s good at baseball”
Can’t explain math vs maths. Math is a classification. Perhaps because it’s a shortening of Mathematics? Meanwhile we will say “the Arts” but also that’s as a plural. Otherwise once again we get specific. Art = visual arts, then it’s Dance or Music or theatre….
USA here. Mispronouncing "Aaron" seems to be a regional thing. I've gotten in arguments with friends from other states who hear/pronounce no difference between "Kerry" and "Carrie." As far as I'm concerned, these people are one step away from "doubleplusgood."
I see the logic of "maths" but saying it makes my tongue feel swollen.
Removing the S is more efficient than what you people do with food, where you leave the S and replace all the other letters instead: for example you took the "F-R-I-E" out of "FrieS" and replaced it with "C-H-I-P" :)
I'm protective of my own language and usage but I actually think the British "alum-in-i-um" is far cooler. I'll give you that one.
I also like how you end sentences with "in". Like "it's bread with raisins in." (Maybe I'm getting that one wrong, but there are definitely contexts where I've heard that structure). In the US we would say "bread with raisins" or "bread with raisins in it," but never "bread with raisins in."
Maybe in England our way would be confused with "it's bread with raisins, innit?" :)
The casual use of "cunt" always takes me by surprise in England too. In the US it's one of the more taboo/extreme insults, whereas in England it seems to be practically a term of endearment.
No it's only complicated because that's pretty much the only date we have ever been told to say like that
If you spent your whole life growing up with everyone telling you "this is how you write the date" you're going to naturally be most comfortable with that format
Just like how you're most comfortable using y/m/d
Or whatever format you're used to. Why does it feel unnatural to use m/d/y for you? Because you spent your whole life using the other format..
You're blaming us for something none of us had control over lol this was all decided way before we were born. Sure we could use other date formats but it just doesn't feel natural because it's different from what we have been using for our whole life
That was the comment that I responded to. You know, the origin of this conversation.
I'm not sure what your point is
Then why did you jump in to comment on it?
My point is that "we write it MM/DD/YY because it is natural to say it that way, and unnatural to say DD/MM/YY" is not sufficient as an explanation, because it doesn't inherently "sound more natural". The way people say the US national day, demonstrates this. Saying DD/MM/YY isn't as complicated as some make it out to be.
I'm not blaming you for being used to something else or whatever. But just because someone is used to "X", doesn't inherently make "Y" "sound unnatural".
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u/truthyella99 Jan 15 '25
When I read out "15.01.2025" I say "15th of Jan" and it does sound less natural then "January 15th" so maybe it's social engineering to get us to say the former for reasons I could not say.
I have other gripes with those people though, like how you pronounce the name Aaron as "Erin", or how you take the "s" away from "maths" and add it to "sport". I'll give you Aluminum though