differing pronunciations in money and convey

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rtdavide@yahoo.com - 26 Sep 2007 17:20 GMT

Hello,

This my first post to this group.
I was asked a question by a friend of mine: Why is the -ey in money
pronounced differently than the -ey in convey? long e versus a long
a
sound.....

I told her I thought it based on the respective etymologies of the
words, but she is wondering if there is any kind of a rule as to when
one would use one over the other.
I don't personally think such a rule exists, but does anyone know the
answer definitively?

Thanks,

dave

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Einde O'Callaghan - 27 Sep 2007 08:00 GMT

rtdavide@yahoo.com schrieb:

> Hello,
>
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> I don't personally think such a rule exists, but does anyone know the
> answer definitively?

As you say, the pronunciation is based to a large extent on the
etymology - there is no rule for the pronunciation of letter
combinations in English. The "-ey" in "key" has another pronunciation
and when you include names like "Feynman" you have yet another
pronunciation of that combination.

Sometimes the pronunciation of a word may change over time under the
influence of other words with the same letter combination or of the
proniunciation in other dialects, varieties or (non-standard) accents.
an example of this is the pronunciation of the word "schedule" - when I
was young the usual pronunciation in Ireland and Britain of the "sch-"
combintion was the same as "sh-" - now this pronunciation seems to be
being replaced by the pronunciation "sk-", probably under the influence
of the American pronunciation.

Regards, Einde O'Callaghan

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Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / September 2007

differing pronunciations in money and convey