How to pronounce kilometer

The Show
61

“English is ‘proparoxytone’, which is to say the antepenult is accented by ‘default’.”

Wrong. And I will prove that “tomorrow.” Indians mispronounce “develop” not because they are applying an English rule, but because they are misapplying an Indic rule or habit.

Oh, here’s another one: “mispronounce”.

“The ‘default’ meter of English is iambic pentameter; an iamb is a foot with 2 syllables, the first stressed, the second unstressed.” Really, Garth? I note that you never got around to the “pentameter” part.

By the way, the definition of “iamb” is “a metrical foot consisting of one short syllable followed by one long syllable or of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable” so you got that wrong too.

Care to have another go? So far you’re wrong about quite a bit.

I will mispronounce toodleoo tomorrow. Iambic pentameter that.

62

Quoth piter_devries: ‘Wrong. And I will prove that “tomorrow.”’

Quoth Wikipedia, ‘Iambic pentameter became the prevalent meter in
English. It was estimated in 1971 that at least three-quarters of all
English poetry since Chaucer was in this meter.’ referencing Nims,
John Frederick (1971), Sappho to Valéry: Poems in Translation,
Princeton University Press, p. 18, ISBN 0691013659

Quoth piter_devries: ‘Indians mispronounce “develop” not because they
are applying an English rule, but because they are misapplying
an Indic rule or habit.’

Well, it was a nice try. I was just guessing.

Quoth piter_devries: ‘Oh, here’s another one: “mispronounce”.’

No rules apply universally in English.

Quoth piter_devries: ‘Really, Garth?’

Garth? This allusion eludes me.

Quoth piter_devries: ‘I note that you never got around to the
"pentameter" part.’

It was irrelevant.

Quoth piter_devries: ‘the definition of “iamb” is “a metrical foot
consisting of one short syllable followed by one long syllable
or of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed
syllable”’

Whoops! I had the length and quantities right (humor mark).

63

meanjoe75fan said:

"I would think that the accent should properly go as: KEY-low-ME-tur, with the primary accent on the first syllable, beecause:

  1. “Kilometer” is really a “compound” word, made up of two distinct words (“meter,” a unit of distance…and “kilo,” a prefix meaning “1,000.”) By pronuncing it “kill-OM-e-tur,” you obscure that fact. Heck, “kilo” is used as a word in its own right…or shortened to “K,” indicating 1,000…as in “Y2K.”"

You are correct. The unit and prefix is pronounced separately. Those who insist on mispronouncing kilometre don’t follow through and mispronounce other “metre” words such as centimetre (as cen-tim-e-ter) and millimetre (as mil-lem-e-ter) in the same fashion. Why is that?

linderlinder said:

"As I go down a top-of-mind list of words ending in “meter” I admit, I’ve gone both ways. I’ve got both -AHmeter words in my vocabulary and blank-o-meter words.

accelerometer barometer diameter electrometer hydrometer kilometer millimeter odometer parameter pedometer perimeter pyrometer speedometer tacheometer tachometer. thermometer…

Just a few from the list and most of these are pronounced AHmeter. Do the brits say these words with the meter separated? Odo MEter? Dia ME ter? Baro MEter? Peri MEter?

If it’s a blanket rule for pronunciation, lots of these words are up for relearning…"

The error in pronouncing kilometre in the US comes from the misspelling of the unit. The unit is correctly spelled metre, not meter in English. The spelling difference distinguishes metre, a unit of measure from meter a device used to measure.

When words are spelled as linderlinder noted, they are pronounced as he noted (om-e-ter). No, the Brits pronounce the meter words as the Americans do. But since they spell kilometre correctly with the -re ending they will know to pronounce kilometre as key-low-me-ter.

Perfect example are the words micrometer vs micrometre. The first is a measuring device and is pronounced my-crom-e-ter, the second is a prefixed unit of the metre and is pronounced my-cro-me-ter (or me-cro-me-ter).

Liter vs litre changes the pronunciation too. Liter is pronounced like lighter and litre is pronounced lee-ter.

The spelling determines the pronunciation. As long Americans have an aversion to spelling metre correctly there will always be a confusion in pronunciation.

64

Zzzzzzzzzzz…

65

It’s up to the individual how you pronounce it - think of how many countries, etc., etc. In the English speaking world, it’s up to you.

Being British I pronounce it “my”+“oz”. :wink:

66

Ho-Hum. I suppose our entire dictionary needs to be rewritten now. We’ve apparently misspelled countless words in this U.S. of A.

And I suppose “hood” should be “bonnet” and “trunk” should be “boot”.

I personally like a lot of the British pronounciations and their wording and spelling better than ours, having spent time there. I use it on occasion myself. But that does not make ours wrong, only different. All language contains much that is derived from other languages. Many of our words come from the English language of Great Britain, many from the Spanish language, many from the French language, and even many from the Native American Indians…which were never actually from India at all.

We need to celebrate the differences, as well as those that make us uniqely who we are. They make language rich and colorful. Those “errors” quoted by Ametrika are there for a reason: we know that some people aren’t happy unless they’re correcting everyone else, and we want to make EVERYONE happy.

67

kilometer = χιλιόμετρο

in greek. Therefore kilOmeter

zzzzzzzzz

68

Language is EVOLVING…Always has been…always will be. We’d all have a very hard time trying to understand someone from England 600 years ago…And people 600 years from now will have a very difficult time understanding the way we speak now.

69

Really? What was so offensive about that post that it was deleted?

70

What was deleted? I don’t see anything in the delete log.

71

Who the heck is reviving these old threads?

72

MB, I have no idea. This was one that I was happy to see sink!