John Hasler wrote:
Michael Z Daryabeygi wrote:Why is it that so many americans have looked at it and said, "Deebian"?Because they are obeying the default rules for pronunciation of english words.
What are you talking about??how do you pronounce bed, Fred, fed, federal, Ned, debit, credit, ... I could go on.
I can think of fecal...., oh and legal, I like to pronounce special speecial, but that is just me. I can think of far more examples where e is pronounced with a short sound than examples where an "e" says "ee" on it's own.
pee, pea, bead, leed, freed, seed, creed, speed, jeeves, tease, ease, freeze, sneeze, please.
See how the e needs help?The fact is there is no "default" in english. And english doesn't make sense, especially to logical-minded computer folks like us.
And I am right and everyone else is wrong. ;) and in case it was unclear, I am an American. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.5.0 - Release Date: 2/25/2005