Originally posted by: THX
But on the face of it, it's not clear that "-cine" (no accents) is an English and not a French spelling. It's constructed like a French word, so for me the natural instinct (natural after four years of French in high school, that is) was to pronounce it like a French word. Lots of French words end in "e" with no accent, so there's no reason to assume it's been bastardized.
And if I did assume it had an English pronunciation? "Tel-schwa-sign". French pronunciation with a missing e-acute? "Tel-schwa-seen-ay".
Never in a million years would my first inclination be "tellisini", since that's just kooky. Correct, perhaps, but goofy as all hell. Who pronounces a final "ine" as "ini"?
schwa.
Originally posted by: Karyudo
I'd agree that with acute accents, you'd get the "ay" sound going. But as written -- that is, without any accents -- then "seen" is right. Innit? I'm not sure I get the logic of applying French pronunciation to English spellings of words...
I'd agree that with acute accents, you'd get the "ay" sound going. But as written -- that is, without any accents -- then "seen" is right. Innit? I'm not sure I get the logic of applying French pronunciation to English spellings of words...
But on the face of it, it's not clear that "-cine" (no accents) is an English and not a French spelling. It's constructed like a French word, so for me the natural instinct (natural after four years of French in high school, that is) was to pronounce it like a French word. Lots of French words end in "e" with no accent, so there's no reason to assume it's been bastardized.
And if I did assume it had an English pronunciation? "Tel-schwa-sign". French pronunciation with a missing e-acute? "Tel-schwa-seen-ay".
Never in a million years would my first inclination be "tellisini", since that's just kooky. Correct, perhaps, but goofy as all hell. Who pronounces a final "ine" as "ini"?
schwa.
That's the sound the doors make on Star Trek, right??