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Is it pronounced "gist" or "jist"? "Gem" or "jem"? "Giraffe" or "jiraffe"?
by mdoms 5y ago
Is it pronounced "gist" or "jist"? "Gem" or "jem"? "Giraffe" or "jiraffe"?
- tremon 5y agoIs it pronounced "beard" or "heard"? "Tear" or "tear"? "Grieve" or "sieve"? "Lover" or "clover"? "Device" or "crevice"? You're implying that there should be a logical correspondence between how English words sound and how they're spelled. I'm not convinced that is true.
- mdoms 5y agoNo I'm implying the exact opposite.
- sdenton4 5y agoGingko or jingko? Given our jiven? Give or jive? Gill or Jill? Giddy or jiddy? Both patterns exist in the language.
- OldTimeCoffee 5y ago> Give or jive? These are both words pronounced really differently, though. Give is a hard 'g' short 'i', jive is a 'j' and a long 'i'. I'd like to add 'Gaol' or 'Jail'? Debra vs Zebra (These are pronounced differently in the US).
- mdoms 5y ago> Both patterns exist in the language. Yes that is my point.
- Traster 5y agoThat's actually quite funny, I would say gist is pronounced jist but only because it's clearly a play on the word "jist" in the first place. Like a branded version of a generic term - like tumblr where we all know it's actually tumbler rather than tumblr but with a different pronounciation due to copyright.
- chrismorgan 5y agoGist is a word. Jist is a misspelling of gist or just, no more. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gist%2Cjist&year_start=1800&corpus=26 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gist%2Cjist&ye... makes me wonder just what happened around 1840. I suspect https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Why_the_Little_Frenchman_Wears_His_Hand_in_a_Sling https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Why_the_Little_Frenchman_Wear... (uses jist regularly as a misspelling of just) may have something to do with it.