It's been suggested that we all do it twice: long-jevity, but I bet some of us don't
How many Gs do you pronounce in longevity?
Lon-gevity
Same what the actual fuck
I could have sworn I only pronounced one G, but I've just done the same thing to hear the difference and now I have no idea how the fuck I usually say it either.
Our language makes literally no sense. I met a guy who was learning English and he went on a 30 minute angry rant about how stupid English is and how there are no rules at all.
Three languages in a trench coat
Same and longevity. I don’t even know who I am.
I say lon gevity and long jevity.
I truthfully forgot how to say that word 😂💀
One. lon-jevity.
Looks like you aren't pronouncing any there with that J
He's pronouncing it as a hard J.
As in cif.
(Sorry, showing my age here)
I'm still angry about this
Don't get me started on marathons and opal fruits....
and Muttley the snickering hound in the background….
You mean the marathoning hound
I know it’s not a name change but what happened to pacers! I loved pacers
You still find them in some long distance races, but unusual to find them in marathons
At least they sorted cocopops out
"Snickers. Made to make your mouth water."
Edit: The more I look at this abomination, the weirder it gets.
Politics? You kids have no idea whatsoever of what went on at Stalingrad.
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Lon-cevity
Shouldn’t that be kif?
Jilit Bang!
I think that's when it's been a while, you finish really quick and she's not finished yet
Nah, it's "lon-hevity"
Take your complaints to Geneva
I discovered to my shock the other day that americans pronounce “longitude” as “lon-jit-ood” while we say it as “lon-git-chewd”. But now I’m wondering if maybe the american way is a bit more consistent with words like longevity.
It’s just not their, ahem, “nitch”
I had the misfortune of hearing this for the first time on a podcast recently and I've never been so furious. What the fuck are they thinking? Where did the t come from? Do they pronounce quiche "quitch"?
they do like to pronounce "clique" as "click"
it took me so long to understand what american characters were talking about when they kept mentioning high school clicks. I know the term to mean the sound, or like a military term for miles.
Recently I saw a redditor type out "wah lah" like that's a word, when I told them the word is "voila" they were like "whatever, I'm not french" that doesn't mean you just make up words though?
like a military term for miles
Pretty sure it's kilometres - "klick"
What I find particularly hilarious is that they then insist on pronouncing “herb” as “erb” like it was in a ridiculous René Artois (look it up, kids!) French accent.
Once asked an American colleague why they don’t pronounce hotel as “otel” but he thought I was taking the piss (he was right, obviously) and didn’t actually answer
Some words have silent letters and others don't. I mean herb doesn't, but some do.
Most English folk don't pronounce the H in herb either.
Lots of brits associate it with the estuary accent or cockney and Essex but by land area in regional accents it's actually more common than not.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-dropping
The difference is English people will do it for all Hs instead of specific ones which I believe is what makes it more noticeable when Americans do it.
It is interesting that Americans seem to prefer the french pronunciations for french loan words whereas we have anglicised them. Makes me wonder when the anglicisation happened.
I have a firmly H dropping accent so it's never really stood out to me.
I’m Essex / London, and if anything pronounce the H in words like herb quite harshly, with full emphasis on the H.
So you don't have a regional accent. Cool
I've heard we anglicised them as using the French pronunciation was seen as pretentious. Was looking into it in reference to Jeeves & Wooster as the latter is a valet very much with the "t". Sadly don't remember anything about timings though, as valet has been in English since the 1500s apparently
Interesting. If the Americans have the french pronunciation, it sounds like we anglicised after the US was colonised Sometime between the colonial period and independence.
Wow, really?
I mean I know cockneys drop H’s but I don’t know many cockneys. I do travel pretty extensively and I haven’t noticed H dropping to that extent - can’t say as I’ve noticed people saying “ello” or “otel” in Yorkshire / the midlands / north west as that map would suggest. Maybe I just didn’t notice
I’m positive I’d have noticed if somebody said erb though… admittedly not a word in day to day usage in the healthcare, IT, and “going to the football” circles I normally move in!
I am a Yorkshireman and we certainly are H dropping around here.
So you would literally say “erbs and spices”?
I’m honestly astonished!
Yes. Again most English people do
https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/s/3miGH25HQJ
These girls and their mum don't pronounce H anywhere in the video but would suddenly do it in "herbs"?
Interesting. I've lived in multiple counties marked on that map as H-dropping and I've literally never heard anybody from those areas pronouncing it 'erb'. The only word/phrase I ever hear with dropped H is "humming and hawing", which still sticks out to me precisely because of the dropped Hs!
I don't see how the 'erb' pronunciation can be that common when most of us in this thread haven't encountered it in England.
You have though, you just haven't realised. Or have lived a very middle class existence. Plenty of working class people have H dropping accents. You've heard them. You've heard cockneys do it, you've heard northerners do it.
Agrid from arry potter....
People in the thread would also swear blind that they pronounce every single R fully. But in reality most Brits have non rhoric accents and don't pronounce Rs after vowels.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/s/3miGH25HQJ
These girls and their mum are saying their Hs are they?
Bloody ell, es not going is e?
But I haven't lived somewhere with cockney accents or with Hagrid from Harry Potter, have I?
I was just sharing my personal experience in the areas I have lived in, which doesn't match the map you linked at all. It sticks out to me when it happens (because I'm not English myself) so I would definitely have noticed. I notice the non-rhotic nature of most English accents as well because my own accent is very much rhotic.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/s/3miGH25HQJ
Well you've only associated with middle class folk then
It came from the same place as the R in "saw"
No. That's "queeetch"
And how do they pronounce that hogwarts flying broom sport? 😱
Qitchditch? 😭
No, but they pronounce “kitsch” as “keesh”.
Wait… is the implication here that we (Americans) pronounce “niche” like “nitch”? I assure you, we do not. That’s just some weirdo.
It is a very common pronunciation across the US.
I’ve lived all over America, interacted with thousands of Americans who have used the word niche. I promise you it is not very common. I have heard it only a handful of times.
So, you're saying.... it's more of a "nitch" misprononciation?
Touché. (Pronounced “touch”, of course.)
You mean tootch.
(I'll stop now)
I hate to break it to you, but I work in an industry where the word “niche” is used ALL. THE. TIME.
At conferences, I might hear the word on average 20-30 times a day. I have literally never heard an American pronounce it as “neesh”. Every American (from universities and organisations across the entire country) has pronounced it “nitch”.
I’ve even had a conversation with a German-born professor about why he uses the the “nitch” pronunciation, and he told me needed to modify his pronunciation after relocating to the US, because his colleagues and students kept correcting him lmaoooo.
If it makes you feel any better, “nitch” is the older pronunciation, and “neesh” is a relative newcomer!
I’m really curious what industry you’re in now! “Niche” is used pretty heavily in mine (video games… all about finding your niche).
Also… are all your conferences in California?
I know we do (and say) a lot of things stupidly, but I can’t reconcile this one with my experience. It’s so bizarre to me that the British might have such a different lens on it.
And no, tbf, I’ve never been to a conference in CA.
FWIW, I’ve heard this said at events in UT, FL, MO, OR, IN, NC, NY, RI, WI, and LA.
A pretty broad geographic range, but no not CA specifically 👀
I’ll admit it’s very possible that this pronunciation could be very specific to my industry, where a word just develops its own in-crowd alignment. I didn’t think of that before, but it’s possible.
If that’s true, it’s only happened in the US.
Oh well, California is practically its own country. They refer to highways as “the <number>” too.
I’ve lived in America my entire life and only rarely have I heard it not pronounced “nitch”. That includes movies and television, except when the characters are British.
What part of America?
One of my biggest pet peeves! It makes me squirm.
I was always told “longy-chood”
Americans and Brits pronounce many words beginning Tu differently, noticeably in words like Tuesday and Tube.
And the obvious chooooon!
It’s tyu that causes the split, not tu. We don’t say choo for the number 2, for example.
But anywhere there was traditionally a tyu, like Tuesday or Tube or Tuna, the Americans tend to simply remove the y and the Brits often smoosh the ty into ch.
You also get the same split when it’s dyu - Americans usually drop the y, and Brits smoosh it into a j. See: dew and due.
Sure, but here I’m more interested in the g / j difference.
Gi in English normally takes a hard G: gimp, gift, girl, got, gilt, gig , girth, Gilbert etc (although gin, gigantic etc are exceptions).
Ge normally uses a soft G: gel, geranium, general, genuine, gerbil, gem, geo etc (although gecko and get are exceptions).
This is why longitude is pronounced with a hard g and longevity isn't.
(Please note: We do not discuss the gif fiasco. We do not examine why words like gotten or y'all are not part of standard English despite being more logical. We do not judge others by their dialects and accents but by god, we absolutely do not encourage the liberties taken against the language by the Americans by suffering nonsense like 'lon-jit-ood'. This is a decent sub, for decent people.)
It might be a regional thing. I live in Wales and I've never heard someone pronounce it lon-git-chewd.
How do you pronounce it?
lon-ji-tude
Surely it’s long-jit-tude?
Llongyphyllycwntude in Welsh
Long I tood and lat I tood
Maybe the 'long-jevity' crowd pronounce it 'long-jit-ewed'.
lon-git-chewd
People who usually prefer to pronounce Ts as CH might do that, same was people say Choosday or Chrain, but that doesn't mean it's correct or how British people say it. I mean, it's pretty common, sure, but it's not "the" British way. It's also why a lot of kids have trouble spelling those words at first. So hard to get them to sound things out correctly when they don't say it correctly in the first place!
IV always said "long-di-chewd" leads me to spell it wrong too.
This guy lon-jevities
Shit, I have not been pronouncing it right
Nine. /lɒŋ.gə.gə.gə.gə.gə.gə.gəˈgɛvɪtiː/
Edit: had the ɛ the wrong way round, which was silly as it resulted in a nonsensical pronunciation
Fairly sure there's a /dʒ/ in there somewhere
I do hope the stutter gets better.
You pronounce the G the same way you pronounce the G in ‘gate’, do you?
The same as the G in gigantic, or garage.
G as in "gif".
ME!? GONGAGA!?
Always long-jevity for me
"Is it a hard G or a soft G?"
"Yes"
I never use a hard g when pronouncing 'long', so I guess there's my mid-eastern (London adjacent) accent. I guess only a fairly strong more northern accent would pronounce it 'long-'ah'-jevity'. I struggle to see how else you can say it with my limited view of mostly English accents.
Same, it's because the jevity is long
Wait, now you’ve given me a third option I’d never considered before!
I pronounce all of them. Even longergeverty
Long-jevity
long-jevity and long-gi-chude
Long Tit Jude.
I've even heard people say it like "long-a-tood" with a silent g.
We'll they're wrong.
of course they are. they are saying long a tood.
Bit like choob and toob for tube ( can't stand when Brits say toob)
Brits? 🤔 We say it like T-you-b ... I swear it's the Americans that bungle it up and say it as "Toob"
Nothing makes any sense anymore.
I'll be thinking about this for the rest of the day.
Same. I don't even know how I speak anymore. Do I say long-jevity or lon-jevity. Both sound right. Maybe I've never said it before?
None, I pronounce it lonjevity
Me too. But I’d argue a soft g is still a g.
0.
Am spanish so I say lonyebetee.
I do two, but I throw them in randomly. Glonevitgy, Gglonevity, longgevity. Just mix it up every time
I don’t pronounce one, Lon-jevity is how I say it.
I pronounce the J with a /j / instead. So technically I’m never pronouncing a G as the sound is tied into the next syllable, which the g is not part of. Despite if a g was it pronounced could make a sound similar to /j /.
EDIT: dude deleted his comment telling me how it would be some e like sound….
Here is my response: Without using phonetic notation I’m a bit lost as to your point sorry.
I pronounce long with a /ɡ/ and not a /dʒ/, while I pronounce longevity with a /j /, and sometimes a /g/ before it.
I pronounce it ggggggggy
Just one, like it's written.
Lon-jevvity here
One, just the J
- Gogegigy
None, I pronounce it lonževity.
None, it's pronounced lon-jevi-ti
One, because it contains one.
Long gevitty
Depends where you're from. If you're from the west Midlands then you will pronounce the g in long, but elsewhere you probably don't and so it just combines into one j sound.
None. It’s lon jevity
Is this that dull mens group ?
Two, but with the first being the (Asian?) ng sound.
/lɒŋˈdʒɛ.vɪ.ti/.
It isn't long-jevity, so anyone who tells you it should be is incorrect (both prescriptively, because it's not correct, and descriptively, because 'should' isn't really a thing).
It's closer to lon-jevity, but more like lonᵍ-jevity, with the n being nasalised at the back of the tongue. Like the end of 'ring', unless you pronounce it rinGUH.
I can't help but feel you've contradicted yourself there.
I can see that, and I agree! I think I got tangled up.
I suppose I meant to say:
Officially it isn't long-jevity, so anyone who tells you it should officially be pronounced that way is incorrect. It's officially closer to lon-jevity, more like lonᵍ-jevity, etc.
But descriptively, say whatever you want within reason.
Yeah no, I'm pretty sure the 'evity' bit is a prefix also seen in the antonym 'brevity'. That means 'the briefness of it' (brev - brief), just like depravity is 'the depraved nature of it', so as longevity is the long nature of it it's made of long+evity. There's no reason to call it lon-jevity, lon isn't a suffix and jevity isn't a prefix. Sorry.
Signed, someone who says 'lon-jevity' because it just sounds better, screw the logic.
Lon-Jev-i’e
One
long gevity
Just like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJWsDpA909c&t=285s
eh??
Long Jevity
a G and a J
G for Garry and a J for John.
Long-jevity here
I'm from the northwest so it's /lɒŋgˈd͡ʒɛv.ɪ.ti/ for me - one hard g /g/ and one soft g /d͡ʒ/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_consonant_clusters#NG-coalescence should hopefully explain it?
Long-jevity
I transition between g-j very quickly, though
Just one!
Long-jevity for sure, Long-je-vity (like mcvitie)
You just have to rack that g up ready to go lonnnngjevity
Lon je vi tee.
Two here!
One g at the end of long and it resonates to a pronounced J at the start of evity
None
I was told that the English deliberately changed the pronunciation of many French words during the many wars between us, just to spite them. Seems plausible to me!
Two!
Lon-gevity :-) one, lol
I don't usually pronounce a g sound in long. So for me, it's more like lon-gevity
Lon gevity
Just the J. Lon-jevity.
I think it’s 0 because I use the soft g.
This has hurt my brain :(
I say long-jevity but now I'm questioning my whole life.
All of them
One.
I don't. I pronounce a "j," though.
Two
Sometimes one - long-jevity.
Sometimes none - lon-jevity
Why the fuck would anyone say 2 Gs??
You only pronounce one G. The NG isn't a G, it's a different sound we for some reason don't have a single letter for.
Well, there is one, but most people aren't aware of ŋ.
My dyslexia sees your question and raises you, how many Gs are you going to spell it with.
Lon jevity. Just one for me.
Lon - jevity
One - just twice 🤣 "Long-jevity"
Mind blown ahah
All of them.
That’s fucked my head haha
2 which is silly now i look at the actual word…
I pronounce it lo'ng-gu'evity. The 'ng' combination is a consonant of its own with no singular letter for it in the English alphabet. I pronounce 1 'g' and no 'j'. How do you pronounce the -ing suffix or the ng in sing, sang, sung, song and singing?
There is regional difference in the pronunciation of 'longevity'. I suspect people who pronounce -ing as -in' are more likely to say lon-jevity or long-jevity and people who pronounce -ing as either -inG or -in'ng' are more likely to pronounce longevity as lonG-evity long-evity.
Considering the word stem is 'long-' it makes sense for it to be pronounced as long-evity or lonGevity.
Just my opinion and observation.
Oh fuck
"Lon-jevity"
One. Because it only contains one.
none it pronounces as a J
definitely two after i've said it to myself about 50 times
Lon-jevity. That's how everyone around me has always said it. I saw this question like 3 times and wondered how on earth you could pronounce it with more than one G sound before caving and opening the thread.
If nothing else it sounds like a lot of effort to insert a 'ng' sound, especially if you're just about to make a consonant sound, and I image it sounds pretty weird too. Be more lazy .
Or, if you actually care about being accurate, say 'long-evity' but that'd sound kind of odd because of the hard g.
I'm a long-jevity person
I think I pronounce it with a zhj....
People who pronounce it "long-jevity" are the same people who say "chester drawers" and "could of".
1 G and a J
LonG Jevity
You’ve come from that TikTok haven’t you?
It’s not long jevity
So it’s one G that’s pronounced, like a J
Lon jevity
Your example makes no sense as you use a J...
Apparently I'm the weirdo for pronouncing it long-jevity, You learn something new every day.
EDIT: HAHA apparently some mod has "muted" me on here because I sent them a message and has nothing to do with any of my posts. I guess I stumbled into Casualnorthkorea.
Wasn't us - you haven't sent any messages to the CasualUK modmail.
It is lonjevity, anyone saying long-jevity is just wrong. Like Supernanny with her BS.
Similar to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6usx5vS238Y
Holy shit I pronounce the same g twice in 2 different ways. Which is clearly ridiculous, but everyone does it. Those who are now claiming they pronounce it ‘lon-jevity’ are lying to us and worst of all lying to themselves.
It's "lon-jevity"
I'm not a flaming maniac.
Huh. I'd say 1 1/2 Gs. The hard G in long is definitely kinda there but definitely not as prominent as the soft G
I've just sat and read the word/said it to myself multiple times with one and two g's and now I genuinely don't know how I used to pronounce it before this post.