7 ms·

It isn’t. There’s no vowel sound between sh and m. Think schmear. Onset: shm. Nucleus: o. Coda: d. One syllable.

Daneel_ 6y ago
Forgive me, but I don't understand how you can pronounce it as one syllable. I would have to pronounce /shmod/ as either /sh-mod/ or /shm-od/, making it two syllables. I'm happy to be corrected, I just physically can't understand how to pronounce it as one syllable.
- koolba 6y ago
  It’s pronounced similar to schmaltz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmaltz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmaltz The trick is one continuous motion of pursing your lips, closing and then opening your mouth as you roll the constants together.
- danaliv 6y ago
  I hear ya. It’s not a terribly common consonant cluster. (In fact I think all English words that start with s[c]hm are Yiddish loanwords, but don’t quote me on that.) Try pushing your lips forward before making any sound, and drawing them back+together as you make the sh sound. It’ll come out as a single shm sound.
- alisonatwork 6y ago
  If you think about a lisping pronunciation of smoke, sounding like "shmoke", this is how I imagine it would sound. One syllable. I wonder if the grandparent is French, because I would never have considered to pronounce chmod like this. Then again, I say C H mod and C H own, which apparently isn't the standard pronunciation, so what do I know!
  - danaliv 6y ago
    White-bread American Midwesterner. :-) Not sure where I picked this pronunciation up. I think what I’ve learned today is that no one pronounces any of these words even remotely the same! ...and while we’re at it, let’s do “char.”
    - koolba 6y ago
      First half of carrot.
    - pacaro 6y ago
      As in chard, but maybe we should all say it as in chardonnay
  - indigodaddy 6y ago
    I pronounce chmod and chown same as you do. Although sometimes I'll pronounce chown as one syllable... not sure the when or the why..
  - pacaro 6y ago
    Ha! This is great. I would have loved to have had this insight when I worked on Midori, at one point there was an M# keyword shmutable (for shared mutable objects) and one objection was the concern (beyond the obvious objections to silly keywords) that if said as sh'mutable that it sounded very close to shimmutable which would be a critically bad confusion
geofft 6y ago
Y'all would probably enjoy Wikipedia's discussions of English phonotactics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics#English_phonotactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics#English_phonotact... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Phonotactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Phonotactics /ʃm/ is not a legal onset in native English. (Let alone /tʃm/, which is how I pronounce "chmod" - two syllables, /tʃə 'mɔːd/.) "Schmear" is a Yiddish loanword coming from German, where /ʃm/ is perfectly legal. So it's pronounceable by the human mouth, it's just a little awkward for English speakers. /sm/ and /ʃr/ are both legal in English, so you might think of it as something like those. Can you pronounce "smear" or "shrine" as one syllable? (I'm not sure /tʃm/ is valid in any language - words or names that start with "chm" seem to be Polish/Russian words transliterating /xm/.)
- Gare 6y ago
  > (I'm not sure /tʃm/ is valid in any language - words or names that start with "chm" seem to be Polish/Russian words transliterating /xm/.) Oh it sure is in Croatian (and other Slavic languages), "tʃ" is written as "č". We even have slang words like "čmr-lji-ti" [t͡ʃmrʎiti]. "r" (rolling r) can function as a vowel.
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    “vzkvět” is a word in Czech that is pronounced in one syllable, exactly how it's spelled, of course. The Dutch word “striktst” is of course also pronounced exactly how it's spelled, and in one syllable.
    - hashmush 6y ago
      Or Swedish "västkustskt" (lit. west coast-ish), where "kustskt" is one syllable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology#Phonotactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology#Phonotactics On-topic, I pronounce chmod as one syllable with "sh", like schmuck.

Forgive me, but I don't understand how you can pronounce it as one syllable. I would have to pronounce /shmod/ as either /sh-mod/ or /shm-od/, making it two syllables. I'm happy to be corrected, I just physically can't understand how to pronounce it as one syllable.

koolba 6y ago
It’s pronounced similar to schmaltz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmaltz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmaltz The trick is one continuous motion of pursing your lips, closing and then opening your mouth as you roll the constants together.
danaliv 6y ago
I hear ya. It’s not a terribly common consonant cluster. (In fact I think all English words that start with s[c]hm are Yiddish loanwords, but don’t quote me on that.) Try pushing your lips forward before making any sound, and drawing them back+together as you make the sh sound. It’ll come out as a single shm sound.
alisonatwork 6y ago
If you think about a lisping pronunciation of smoke, sounding like "shmoke", this is how I imagine it would sound. One syllable. I wonder if the grandparent is French, because I would never have considered to pronounce chmod like this. Then again, I say C H mod and C H own, which apparently isn't the standard pronunciation, so what do I know!
- danaliv 6y ago
  White-bread American Midwesterner. :-) Not sure where I picked this pronunciation up. I think what I’ve learned today is that no one pronounces any of these words even remotely the same! ...and while we’re at it, let’s do “char.”
  - koolba 6y ago
    First half of carrot.
  - pacaro 6y ago
    As in chard, but maybe we should all say it as in chardonnay
- indigodaddy 6y ago
  I pronounce chmod and chown same as you do. Although sometimes I'll pronounce chown as one syllable... not sure the when or the why..
- pacaro 6y ago
  Ha! This is great. I would have loved to have had this insight when I worked on Midori, at one point there was an M# keyword shmutable (for shared mutable objects) and one objection was the concern (beyond the obvious objections to silly keywords) that if said as sh'mutable that it sounded very close to shimmutable which would be a critically bad confusion

geofft 6y ago

Y'all would probably enjoy Wikipedia's discussions of English phonotactics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics#English_phonotactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics#English_phonotact... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Phonotactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Phonotactics /ʃm/ is not a legal onset in native English. (Let alone /tʃm/, which is how I pronounce "chmod" - two syllables, /tʃə 'mɔːd/.) "Schmear" is a Yiddish loanword coming from German, where /ʃm/ is perfectly legal. So it's pronounceable by the human mouth, it's just a little awkward for English speakers. /sm/ and /ʃr/ are both legal in English, so you might think of it as something like those. Can you pronounce "smear" or "shrine" as one syllable? (I'm not sure /tʃm/ is valid in any language - words or names that start with "chm" seem to be Polish/Russian words transliterating /xm/.)

Gare 6y ago
> (I'm not sure /tʃm/ is valid in any language - words or names that start with "chm" seem to be Polish/Russian words transliterating /xm/.) Oh it sure is in Croatian (and other Slavic languages), "tʃ" is written as "č". We even have slang words like "čmr-lji-ti" [t͡ʃmrʎiti]. "r" (rolling r) can function as a vowel.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  “vzkvět” is a word in Czech that is pronounced in one syllable, exactly how it's spelled, of course. The Dutch word “striktst” is of course also pronounced exactly how it's spelled, and in one syllable.
  - hashmush 6y ago
    Or Swedish "västkustskt" (lit. west coast-ish), where "kustskt" is one syllable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology#Phonotactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology#Phonotactics On-topic, I pronounce chmod as one syllable with "sh", like schmuck.