Why is the initial letter of some of the words like pneumonia, and psychology not pronounced?
29903
Why have a letter in a word when it’s silent in pronunciation, like the b in debt?  Can anyone please clarify my uncertainty here?
75461
A general rule of English pronunciation states that the 's' in plural nouns is to be pronounced as /z/ if it is preceded by a 'voiced consonant' such as /n/ or /g/, and as /s/ if it is preceded by a 'voiceless consonant' such as /t/ or /p/.  Therefore, "pens" is pronounced as /penz/ and "cats" is pronounced as /cats/.  Now my question is, do native speakers of English always follow this rule? Secondly, and this is what I really need to understand, does this rule apply also to the 's' in the verbs of 'third person singular subjects'?
87324
It just occured to me that there are words in English that have two different meanings, two different pronunciations and are written exactly the same.  For example "present" can be interpreted as the tense when pronounced   /ˈprezənt/ or as a synonym of "demonstrate" when /priˈzent/  Other examples from the top of my head: "read", "live".  I don't think I have seen that in any other language. In most languages you can't tell the spelling of a word by hearing it, but you call articulate it correcly when you're reading it. It seems that in English you can't do either of those.  Did English ever have accent marks to distinguish between those? How did it end up like that?
88579
Ok, see the word "conscious" has the IPA /ˈkɑːnʃəs/ in the   However, when you listen clearly, you will feel like it should be /ˈkɑːntʃəs/ not /ˈkɑːnʃəs/.  So it should read /tʃ/ rather than /ʃ/.  In some other dictionaries, which use different transcription systems, they give the entry "ˈkän(t)-shəs" , for example in the . Here we see it with a /t/.  So, should the IPA for the word "conscious" be /ˈkɑːnʃəs/ or /ˈkɑːntʃəs/?
119548
I have realized that to pronounce the plural form of words ending in -th, we have to drop the letter "h". e.g. Months is pronounced /mʌnts/. But I have never seen this point mentioned in any context. I just want to make sure that this rule is correct and can be always applied.
111615
Why are there inconsistencies in the pronunciation of the consonants of the alphabet? For example: 'b' is pronounced like 'bee' but 'm' is pronounced as 'em' rather than 'me'. The pronunciation of 'h' matches nothing and 'j' and 'k' are orphaned twins.  In Turkish (the only other language I have any knowledge of), the consonants are consistently sounded as if they have an 'e' appended.
94805
Does the word discharge sound more like /dɪstʃɑːʳdʒ/ or /dɪsdʒɑːʳdʒ/? How about exchange or disproportion? Do they sound more like /ɪkstʃeɪndʒ/ or /ɪksdʒeɪndʒ/? /dɪsprəpɔːʳʃən/ or /dɪsbrəpɔːʳʃən/? I know the word student which commonly sounds like /sdjuːdənt/. and the dictionary says its IPA transcription is /stjuːdənt/.
23190
On another post an interesting fact has just been discovered about the OED's treatment of nouns adopted into English from German (loan-words).  A lot of them e.g. Nazi are spelled with a capital letter. Similar words, which are not of German origin, such as communist or socialist are not spelled with a capital.  Equally Zeitgeist, and Blitzkrieg are also given capitals, but interestingly not kindergarten or bratwurst.  Of course, in German all nouns are given capital letters, not just proper nouns as in English.   What is it that determines whether a noun adopted into English from German should have a capital letter?
81116
In my profile under the  there is a small visual bug: a space is missing between the word "on" and the subsequent word.   See the following image:
75858
Is there a rule that would help me to learn when to pronounce the letter c as an "s" sound or a "k" sound?  For example:  - cat (kat)  - center (sinter)  Are there any rules, or is it all memorization?
93014
First off, the title is misleading; feel free to improve upon it.   I've noticed words surrounding titles often start with upper case letters, but I'm uncertain if this is correct. After reading  I cannot find rules that justify the uppercase letters.  EXAMPLES:    1) The student union building of many universities is abbreviated SUB but I often see the full name written as "Student Union Building". By itself "student union building" is not a proper noun since it doesn't refer to one unique entity but when speaking of a certain university it might.   2) Common buildings often have names beginning with upper case letters. For example, I've seen fire hall written as "Fire Hall" and city hall written as "City Hall" ().   3) I have a ticket which reads "Winter Formal Dance".  Is the  capitalization of these words correct? If so, then why? Is it a matter of rules, or is the deciding factor whatever the owner decides? For example, if a swimming coach decides practices on Wednesday will be known as "Wednesday Practices", would it be correct to always write 'practices' with the upper case "P"?
97784
In American English, a lot of words are spelt with a single consonant plus "-ed", rather than two consonants as you often find in British English. Why isn't "plan" spelt with a single consonant?
113350
I noticed that there are a lot of last names that have an 'e' at the end.  The pronunciation usually isn't changed from that of the base word.   Poole Steele Browne Clarke   Why do English words not have the e?  Maybe the answer to this question depends on which came first, pool or poole.
116114
When starting a sentence with a number, should the first letter be capitalised?  For example,     96% Real meat.   or     96% real meat.
36733
This may sound absolutely crazy but I really need an answer to that.   How do natives pronounce "idea of"  I am not sure if I hear it correctly, but to me, it seems like when natives pronounce 'idea of' they add an extra 'r' to the pronunciation. So I hear something like 'idear of'. If that is true, why do they do that?
62531
In a recent Financial Times article (Yemen PM Escapes Assissnation), the apostrophe necessary to show possession was left out. I've seen colleagues do it as well. Isn't it supposed to be "Yemen's PM Escapes...?" Other times I've seen people write "Japan Minister of Finance tackles deflation..." or "India VP resigns..." I have noticed that in most of these cases, the omission of the apostrophe was right before a captilazed appellation (president, country, municipal, etc.) What's going on? Firm grammar rules stipulate that there be an apostrophe, yet there isn't one. If the FT does it, then there must be an exception (in journalism?) that I'm unaware of. Must there or must there not be an apostrophe?
12733
The word "baked" is pronounced as:      /ˈbeɪkt/   While "naked" is pronounced as:      /ˈneɪkɪd/   Why are these two words not pronounced the same?