+324 Whenever you say "warmth" you can't help but add a silent p, amirite?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If you add it, it isn't exactly silent.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

hahaHA i need sleep

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If it's silent, you can add it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Sure, but does it really mean anything to add a letter if it is silent?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

knight night

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But when you say knight out loud, adding a silent g does not make any difference.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

That's pretty much what the OP said.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Adding a silent letter only makes a difference in writing and there is no point to only adding a silent letter when you say the word out loud.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yes.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I add a silent q. Sometimes a silent k. Whatever I'm in the mood for.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Invisible p? But I know what you mean. No need for picking at details.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I defenitely meant invisible!

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I just sat and tried over and over to say it without the P

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I don't understand how this is possible.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

say the word 'warmth' out loud.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

d I tried, multiple times. This is why I don't understand how you all do it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

A lot of people pronounce it warmpth

by Anonymous 12 years ago

lolwut

by Anonymous 12 years ago

To form the "m" you have your lips together. To form the "th" you take your lips apart. To make a "p" you put your lips together and take them apart. So, the combination of a "m" and a "th" sound often makes a little "p" sound in between.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No, what? They're completely different combinations of sounds. The sound MMMK also starts with lips together and K requires them apart, though there's no P sound there either. If it were impossible to say it otherwise, how would I be able to pronounce it without any extra letter at all.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=warmth&submit=Submit This is how I say it. This is how you all (Americans) say it: http://www.forvo.com/search/warmth/ THERE I can hear the extra P that you add for no reason. What the fuck, people.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I never said its impossible not to, I just said it often happens. The OP said "silent p" because its sometimes hard to hear and sometimes isn't there at all. Can you give me an example of a common word that uses "mk"? I am not saying there isn't one, but I find it hard to pronounce those two together at all. I'd rather you not criticize us(Americans) for pronouncing it differently. We just have different accents. It is not something that can really be changed.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Oh really, I didn't realise having a different accent, i.e. a way of pronouncing things differently, includes adding unnecessary letters involuntary. If people from other countries, e.g. England, can pronounce it right, then it means Americans have made it sound this way on purpose.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Hey, sometimes English people add "r"s to the end of words that end in vowels, I've noticed. For instance, "Bella" is pronounced "Bellar" with the "r" almost silent. It's just one of those language quirks. And it's not like we all decided "Hey, let's pronounce it this way!" It's a product of many generations growing up hearing it pronounced a certain way.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

And from whom did they hear it growing up? Their own people, from the same country. I know how national grammar mistakes start, I'm just saying that it wasn't involuntary and it's not "impossible to change".

by Anonymous 12 years ago

The reason we have an involuntary p and you do not is because of the way we pronounce the "a". Yours, to me, sounds more like an "o", which is clearly an accent difference. When I pronounce the word with our "a" I get a "p" and when I pronounce it with your "a" I don't get a "p". This makes the p a result of an accent difference. We did not do it on purpose unless you are accusing us of developing the wrong accent, which is something we couldn't help.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I can do it with either A. Wormth, wearmth, war-mth, anything, no P at all. It's not involuntary. I can fake an American accent, believe me, and I can fake the extra P, but it's far from involuntary. It's how you were raised.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

YOU MAKE ME ANGRY WHEN YOU TYPE THINGS!

by Anonymous 12 years ago

U mad? troll

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I'll have to take you at your word for that. I can't pronounce it "correctly" except by taking undue care and awkwardly lengthening the m. It may not be involuntary, but, for me and at least 329 people, it would have to be a very conscious, deliberate pronunciation, which language shouldn't have to be. Also, although I wouldn't say its impossible to change, I think the extreme amount of effort it would take would be unwarranted given that it is such a slight sound. I can't even begin to see how you would go about changing people's way of speaking, and since kids learn to speak from their parents it would be hard to prevent as well. In any case, I think it is rather insulting for you to say we "choose" to be wrong and we "made it sound that way on purpose." Its not like we think "I'm going to pronounce it wrong this time." The change has probably happened over the course of hundreds of years. It is no one's fault, just the evolution of language.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Oh but I didn't specify who I was speaking of as "you all", did I? It's your entire country and culture that chose to do this over time, and even as you all (and your old generations, and new, all Americans) notice this you don't change so this "extreme amount of effort" is in fact spreading out into many years of slight alteration. I'm quite certain many decades ago people of your culture or country pronounced Warmth I could pronounce 0% of the sound TH and the American/English R, but now after a few years I can pronounce them as any normal person who speaks English. I can also say the sounds that Americans can't, because those are the childhood ones for me. Being fluent in different languages like this makes one be able to say these things such as Warmth correctly or wrongly if one so chooses. So yes, it //is// a simple choice, but it isn't limited to the pronunciation of this little word correctly or wrongly, but rather the choice to be able to do all sorts of things with pronunciation, I can even pronounce things correctly in Spanish now, better than Americans, even though my first language isn't even close to Spanish. It just makes your body "fitter" for speaking in general.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I would not call it a simple choice by any stretch of the imagination. A choice implies a decision where I doubt anyone or any group decided to change. I see what you mean, but I still don't think that this was anyone's intention. Even on a personal level this choice is not a simple one. To revert back would take quite some effort. And what is all this effort for the purpose of? I believe that language should not be a constant. People are not calling us "mistaken" though our english sounds nothing like Old English. At some point, all mankind was united by one language, or so it is supposed. Ought we try and be "correct" under their standards? Language evolves naturally. As long as language continues to communicate, which clearly it does with or without the p, to what end would all this effort to be "correct" come to? The way I see it, this is no different than a different accent. We don't call accents wrong, but just different. Who are you to call what this post seems to say is a large majority of people wrong?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

hmm I know it's an accent, but that doesn't mean every single weird phrase or word in it is correct. There should //not// be an extra P in a word like this, and if nothing is done then over a few decades this word will become warmpth. After that, some other mistake would transform it into woarmpth, then something like wloarmpth and so on until it's just a jumbled pile of random letters. I, personally, don't want that for any dialect or country. Just leave the word as it's written, and pronounce it so. The word Stop, btw, also does not have an A or an AH sound.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

As weird as it sounds, language "mistakes" should be judged by how widespread they are. On an individual basis, mistakes are wrong and should be corrected. When the mistake gets to the level of a country or many countries, however, it becomes acceptable. Consider the word gay. I am sure many decried its usage as homosexual at first, but now it is just accepted. "Tomato," "the," "either," "harassment," and many other words probably had set pronunciations at one time, but now multiple are correct. Language changes naturally and I think attempts to correct the changes are futile. Also, words will never become a pile of random letters. Mispronunciations are not intentional and are not random. If you notice, mistakes like this are not very common. If we continue to correct individual mistakes then language will most likely not make any drastic changes.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yep, that's why you all don't see it as a mistake, while I, speaking British English (or the father of American English), see the mistakes in pronunciation. It's sad, though, that if the whole country makes a stupid mistake, after a while it becomes the correct way. I see it frequently happening in America. And no, warmpth if it's nation-wide will continue having tiny unnoticed alterations until it's far from the original, but yet it will still sound completely normal to the speakers. "warmth" spoken correctly will sound as weird as Shakespearean language.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Exactly. That's the evolution of language for you. The irritating thing is that there is always a transition time for the change, where some see it as wrong, others think it is right/acceptable, and the groups argue about it. To me, while its sad that it happens, its even sadder to see people getting so worked up about it. These changes have happened ever since language was made. The standard you call "right" may very well have been considered "wrong" at some point. And I will concede that American English seems to be changing rather rapidly, but every language, including British English, undergoes these changes. This is not to say that we shouldn't try to stop the changes as best we can, but we need to keep in mind that at least some change is inevitable.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

i add an extra silent w to tacos, just because

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I think "warmth" should actually be spelled "warmpdfth", though the p, the d, and the f are silent.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Thanks for the homepage, guys. And thanks for the in-depth convo! I realized my mistake a few seconds after posting it, but I'm glad you guys understand.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Just a P? I all the entire alphabet silently. Wabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzarmth.

by Anonymous 12 years ago