3 ms·

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 sy

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

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