Friday 6 June 2014

Comb your hair!

Why can't my German students of English pronounce the word for
used under this licence: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
properly? After 7-9 years of English many of them still call it /kɒmb, kɒm, kuːm/.
Take it from me - it's /kəʊm/ in GB and /koʊm/ in GA.

8 comments:

  1. There are words like bomb, aplomb in /-ɒm/, and others like tomb, womb in /-uːm/ — but is morpheme-final /-mb/ phonotactically possible at all in RP or GA?

    Charlie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, take, for example, the words "iamb" and "dithyramb" which also have a rare variant with /-mb/.

      Delete
    2. Oh, the Greek contribution to poetry doesn’t seem to have undergone plosive dropping in certain consonant clusters as completely as the rest.

      Thanks for the information, Alex. I wasn’t aware that such pronunciations were considered RP.

      Charlie

      Delete
    3. As Alex rightly points out, the pron of iamb or dithyramb with a final /b/ is the less frequent variant. As we talk about words with -mb-, items such as clamber or amber are pronounced with /b/ whereas bombing, plumber or climbing are not. The whole thing is rule-governed.

      Delete
  2. There is at least one homograph where "mb" is pronounced differently depending on the meaning. The spelling is "number" and it's |ˈnʌmbə| meaning "1, 2, 3, ..." but |ˈnʌmə| meaning "more numb".

    ReplyDelete
  3. Excellent example, Mariano!

    ReplyDelete
  4. razor comb is a small grooming tool that combines a comb and a razor blade. The razor blade is integrated into the teeth of the comb, allowing the user to comb and trim hair at the same time. razor comb
    Razor combs are often used for thinning out thick hair or for creating layered haircuts. They can also be used for shaping beards and mustaches.

    ReplyDelete