beautypg.com

Sharp The New Oxford American Dictionary Oxford American Thesaurus of Current English ELECTRONIC DICTIONARY PW-E350 User Manual

Page 42

background image

40

Foreign Sounds

KH

as in Bach |bä

KH

|

A fricative consonant pronounced with the tongue in the same position as for
|k|, as in German Buch and ich, or Scottish loch.

N

as in en route

N

"roo

- t|, Rodin |ro-"dæ

N

|

The |

N

| does not represent a consonant; it indicates that the preceding vowel

is nasalized, as in French

bon (bon voyage) and en (en route).

œ

as in hors d’oeuvre |ôr"dœvr@|, Goethe |"gœt@|
A vowel made by rounding the lips as with |ô| while saying |e| or |a-|, as in
French

boeuf and feu, or German Hölle and Höhle.

Y

as in Lully |l

Y

"le-|, Utrecht |"

Y

%tre

KH

t|

A vowel made by rounding the lips as with |oo

˘ | or |oo

- | while saying |i| or |e-|,

as in French

rue or German fühlen.

Stress Marks

Stress (or ‘accent’) is represented by marks placed before the affected syllable. The
primary stress mark is a short, raised vertical line |"| which signifies that the
heaviest emphasis should be placed on the following syllable. The secondary stress
mark is a short, lowered vertical line |%| which signifies a somewhat weaker
emphasis than on the syllable with primary stress.

Variant Pronunciations

There are several ways in which variant pronunciations are indicated in the
respellings.

Some respellings show a pronunciation symbol within parentheses to indicate a
possible variation in pronunciation; for example, in sandwich |"sæn(d)wi

CH

|

sometimes the |d| is pronounced, while at other times it is not.

Variant pronunciations may be respelled in full, separated by semicolons. The more
common pronunciation is listed first, if this can be determined, but many variants
are so common and widespread as to be of equal status.

Variant pronunciations may be indicated by respelling only the part of the word that
changes. A hyphen will replace the part of the pronunciation that has remained the
same. These ‘cutback’ respellings will occur primarily in three areas:

a) where the headword has a variant pronunciation:

quasiparticle |%kwa-z

l

-"pärt

-@k@l|; |%kwäze

--|

b) in derivative forms:

dangle |"dæ

NG

g@l|

dangler |-gl@r|
dangly |-gle-|

Note: Cutbacks in derivatives always refer back to the headword respelling, not the

preceding derivative.

c) at irregular plurals:

parenthesis |p@"ren

TH

@sis|

parentheses |-%se-z|

Note: A hyphen sometimes serves to separate syllables where the respelling might

otherwise look confusing, as at reinforce |%re--in"fôrs|.

PWE350_introToDict0707.pm65

07/09/2004, 15:52

40

Black