Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 April 9

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April 9

Massacre

Is "massa-cree" a common pronunciation of "massacre" in the United States? 87.113.94.245 (talk) 15:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I've never heard it, and I can't find it any American dictionaries. If I did hear it, I'd probably think the person pronouncing it that way either was joking or had never heard it pronounced and was taking a stab at a spelling pronunciation. Angr (talk) 15:40, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The only place I've heard it is "Alice's Restaurant", where it is clearly meant to be humorous. Marco polo (talk) 16:47, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I have now found it in Webster's Third New International, where it is marked "substandard" (which is pretty strong language for them). So it's not nonexistent, but I don't think one could call it a common pronunciation in the U.S. Angr (talk) 17:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

This site has several alleged examples of that usage.[1] It's certainly not commonly used. It's probably used by the folks who pronounce champion as "champeen" - only less so. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:10, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm thinking of vittles, varmints, ornery critters, Yosemite Sam, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Lloyd Bridges in High Noon. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 22:23, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

For some reason, it makes me think of Walter Brennan. I'm pretty sure that he used the pronunciation in question in some films. And you're right, I seem to recall that that Yosemite Sam (and even Bugs Bunny himself) used it as well. Deor (talk) 22:40, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Walter Brennan, of course. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 09:11, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Chinese help

Charlie Soong's original name was Han Jiaozhun: 韓教準. The reading of the first character is ​​Hán and the third character is ​zhǔn​. But the second character can be Jiào​, jiāo​, or jiào​ - which is it? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 16:38, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Also at Soong Ai-ling the children were called Kǒng Ling(?)-something (孔令?) - What is the reading of "ling" while used in a name? WhisperToMe (talk) 18:08, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The native Mandarin speaker sitting across the table from me says Han Jiaozhun's 教 is probably pronounced "jiào", and the 令 in Soong Ai-ling's children's names is definitely pronounced "lì​ng". Note that this is Hanyu Pinyin transcription, not IPA, which would write the pronunciations differently. Evzob (talk) 13:50, 10 April 2012 (UTC)