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The word has (until tonight) always been pronounced 'Hurr i cun'.
Now all of a sudden the reporters are calling the latest one 'Hurr i cane' Sandy.
Maybe they've been told to say it that way, maybe they haven't been told anything.
Just wondered.
The word came into English from Spanish huracán, and that came from Taíno, a pre-Columbian language spoken broadly across much of the Caribbean island region.
It gives the pronunciation as "can," with a mark over the letter a that indicates it is "The short sound of the Italian a as in fat, mat, marry."
The same mark is used for the first a in "Abate," but the second a is marked as "The long slender English a as in fate paper &c."
So, although I'm not totally sure what the author means, it's rather clear that it is NOT "kane."
The first two syllables, BTW, are "hur-ree" (like hurry). The i in the middle is not the "uh" or "ih" that it is today. So it's something like "HUR-ree-can."
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Windy Topic....
For decades, The BBC (as well as other UK TV networks) has reported on hurricanes.The word has (until tonight) always been pronounced 'Hurr i cun'.
Now all of a sudden the reporters are calling the latest one 'Hurr i cane' Sandy.
Maybe they've been told to say it that way, maybe they haven't been told anything.
Just wondered.
4
I think the last time the BBC told their reporters how to pronounce a word was when Peking became Beijing.5
Would that be the same sort of change, as from Bombay to Mumbai?7
The Macquarie Dictionary from Australia lists the pronunciation as: hʌrəkən, hʌrɪkən10
#8 I thought Mumbai was supposed to be the old Hindi name of a part of the city. Most Indians I meet tell me that they still call it Bombay anyway.11
My guess is that the cain pronunciation comes from people reading what they see written, and the USA tends to be more literalist in that direction than GB. No doubt British reporters have recently picked it up from the USA.The word came into English from Spanish huracán, and that came from Taíno, a pre-Columbian language spoken broadly across much of the Caribbean island region.
14
I found an 1806 dictionary: A Critical Prnouncing Dictionary and Expositor of The English Language. The author is adamant that the educated London pronunciation is the only real, true way to say things.It gives the pronunciation as "can," with a mark over the letter a that indicates it is "The short sound of the Italian a as in fat, mat, marry."
The same mark is used for the first a in "Abate," but the second a is marked as "The long slender English a as in fate paper &c."
So, although I'm not totally sure what the author means, it's rather clear that it is NOT "kane."
The first two syllables, BTW, are "hur-ree" (like hurry). The i in the middle is not the "uh" or "ih" that it is today. So it's something like "HUR-ree-can."
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