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Post: How do you pronounce 'Toronto'

James said:
What piques my interest more is how it is widely accepted to mispronounce Etobicoke as "ee-toh-bee-koh" instead of the more correct Indian pronunciation of "ee-toh-bee-koh-kay".
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English is a complete mess when it comes to pronunciation. A letter can have half a dozen pronunciations and there is no rule to speak of, and there are so many random silent letters. For example, the L is often silent in many words, such as "almond", "palm" "Lincoln" but are not in others such as "hold" "pulp" or "altitude" and there doesn't seem to be any reason for it.

When you have learned another language such as Spanish or Italian, you realize the English system makes no sense whatsoever.
 
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Torontonians drop the first "o" and the second "t".

The Québécois pronounce everything strangely because their language is derived from a particular patois which was never standardized as was done to the French of France in the 19th century.
 
kkgg7 said:
English is a complete mess when it comes to pronunciation. A letter can have half a dozen pronunciations and there is no rule to speak of, and there are so many random silent letters. For example, the L is often silent in many words, such as "almond", "palm" "Lincoln" but are not in others such as "hold" "pulp" or "altitude" and there doesn't seem to be any reason for it.

When you have learned another language such as Spanish or Italian, you realize the English system makes no sense whatsoever.
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The English system as you call it makes sense from a historical perspective.

What's interesting to me isn't the pronounced and unpronounced letters here and there, but the Great Vowel Shift and how/why it happened.

I remember learning to read Polish was very hard for me growing up, until I learned/realized that their vowels are different from ours (and actually consistent).

Once I learned the vowels, and the different consonants (e.g. w = v) it was a lot easier to be able to read.

As frustrating as English can be at times, I think it's an amazing language.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
The English system as you call it makes sense from a historical perspective.

What's interesting to me isn't the pronounced and unpronounced letters here and there, but the Great Vowel Shift and how/why it happened.

I remember learning to read Polish was very hard for me growing up, until I learned/realized that their vowels are different from ours (and actually consistent).

Once I learned the vowels, and the different consonants (e.g. w = v) it was a lot easier to be able to read.

As frustrating as English can be at times, I think it's an amazing language.
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Absolutely right. The same English vowels can have half a dozen different pronunciation in different words and not following any sort of rule, which makes it harder for foreigners to learn. For example, the letter "a" is always pronounced as /a/ 100% of the time in French, Spanish, Italian, and German, but in English, it is different in "father", "fat", "ate", "water", "available" or silent in "aisle".

Everything system makes sense from a "historical perspective" and English is no different. But no one can argue that the English pronunciation system is a lot less phonetic (sound-spelling matching) and a lot more complicated than other European languages. In this respect, Italian is the best (easiest), and then Spanish and German, followed by French.
 
UserNameToronto said:
Poor people listen to radio, while the wealthy watch TV?
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I'd have thought it was plainly obvious that I was simply joking to radio as a dead medium, referring to the situation the last time it had much relevance in the late 1950s or early 1960s. If it wasn't for people having the radio on when in the car, I doubt that radio would even be functioning any more.

UserNameToronto said:
And we all know what listening to CBC radio implies.
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That one spends too much time driving?
 
nfitz said:
I'd have thought it was plainly obvious that I was simply joking to radio as a dead medium, referring to the situation the last time it had much relevance in the late 1950s or early 1960s. If it wasn't for people having the radio on when in the car, I doubt that radio would even be functioning any more.
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Radio gets a lot of play in many workplaces.
 
nfitz said:
That one spends too much time driving?
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Gotta listen to something while driving! I don't listen exclusively to CBC Radio either, just when I'm tired of the repetitiveness of the regular radio stations (my programmed stations are Z103.5, 99.9 Virgin, KISS 92.5, 102.1 The Edge, 104.5 CHUM FM, and CBC Radio One 99.1).

I have to admit though that 90% of the time music comes on CBC I switch it because the music is lame.

I hear about 15 minutes of radio in the morning, and 20 minutes in the afternoon.

Compared to a lot of people I know, my commute time is not bad and not too far (14 km).
 
This is a joke, right? Radio will never die....not before standard television does.
I don't know...I'm pretty young (27) and I listen to the radio to death, but TV? LOL!!!! Sure, if by watching TV you mean having it hooked up to my laptop and once in a while streaming films or shows from the internet, then yeah.

Anyways....anyone else here pronounce Scarborough the proper way? As in: Scarbrah
just wondering :)

PS: Yo, C.C.....you're missing Toronto's best radio station for music: CIUT FM 89.5!!! Commercial-freeee! :) (kinda like my streaming films and serials :p )

Oh, and even better: there were a couple of pirate radio stations running a couple years back in Scarborough (just the two I knew of) playing some pretty good hip hop, dub, reggae, and jungle
 
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MTown said:
This is a joke, right? Radio will never die....not before standard television does.
I don't know...I'm pretty young (27) and I listen to the radio to death, but TV? LOL!!!! Sure, if by watching TV you mean having it hooked up to my laptop and once in a while streaming films or shows from the internet, then yeah.

Anyways....anyone else here pronounce Scarborough the proper way? As in: Scarbrah
just wondering :)

PS: Yo, C.C.....you're missing Toronto's best radio station for music: CIUT FM 89.5!!! Commercial-freeee! :) (kinda like my streaming films and serials :p )

Oh, and even better: there were a couple of pirate radio stations running a couple years back in Scarborough (just the two I knew of) playing some pretty good hip hop, dub, reggae, and jungle
Click to expand...

I agree with you TV is dying. All the good shows are on HBO, and who wants to pay to watch it? I'll watch it online, and if really I like the show, I'll buy the Blu-Ray.

As for CIUT, I don't even know if I'd get that out here.
 
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