On 31-Aug-08 14:51, Stephen wrote:
> On 31 Aug 2008 08:34:45 -0400, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> 
>> Stephen <mcavoysAT@aoldotcom> wrote:
>>> I'm not from MK either. ;) But I pronounce the wrongly-written "i" the same way
>>> as I pronounce the first "i" but shorter, as in lit. Assuming, of course that
>>> the "i" in lit is pronounced like "it".
>>  That's not what I hear from the voice sample here:
>> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/equivalent
>>
> 
> Yes, that is the Received Pronunciation if you take away the American accent :)
> Having said all that, it does not excuse Andrew from bad spelling and laziness
> in not spell checking. But it goes a fair way to his misunderstanding why you
> asked what "equivilent" means. It probably read like the equivalent of an
> allophone 
> 
>>  I don't remember ever hearing it pronounced otherwise...
> 
> Come to the UK, travel away from the "home counties" and I will be surprised if
> you can still say that.

Most people assume for some reason that because English was originally 
spoken in the UK that the pronunciation there would be more alike there 
then abroad. In fact it is the other way around. 
Business/scientific/international English is much more uniform than in 
the UK of the US. In fact Scotsmen and Texans and ... who are traveling 
a lot abroad have to learn to speak the international English just as 
well (and some fail).

What is particularly interesting is that most people who assume English 
to be the same everywhere in the UK and the US do know that there are a 
lot of local (and nearly incomprehensible) accents in their own language.

(BTW I am not suggesting that Warp suffers from this misconception, it 
is just something that surprises me every time)

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