Monday, October 13, 2008

a hammock is a hammock is a hammock...

How do you pronounce the word "hammock"? 

Alan and I both say, "ham" and "mock", thus "hammock".

But Bryan corrected us, "No! It's hammock!" You know, like how the Americans would pronounce stomach, with an inverted e in IPA. 
Anyway, if you don't believe me, try the link to the Free Online Dictionary

Ok.... is this a case of orang utan and hammock now? 
Hope to post a video footage soon. 

After note: 
Just looked up the Cambridge Online Dictionary. 
hammock is pronounced /hæm.ək/.
So Bryan's right.
According to Daddy, Bryan said he heard it on Caillou long time ago and couldn't imagine how we could have doubted him. Alamak, he's such a PBS kid! How would we know? We never grew up with Caillou!

3 comments:

Alcovelet said...

Oh really? I'm a ham-mock person myself. Don't we learn everyday! Amazing the distinctions Bryan can make by listening.

Lilian said...

I definitely know it's pronounced hæm.ək but when saying it will always say ham-mock lah. Bryan, you are a chow angmoh now eh? Wait till you go back to Singapore, your friends won't be able to understand your england.

Nolah, you're a very clever boy, please continue speaking english the way it should be spoken, not like your mummy and daddy and aunty here; we speak it like it's broken :)

bACk in GERMANY said...

Aiyah, give him a couple of weeks. He'll be as Singlish as anyone! Imagine his grandpa saying lalio, instead of radio or TeeWee instead of TeeVee all the time! LOL!

Plus all the interjections like lah's, leh's, hor's har's etc...

It's ok to talk Singlish lah... as long as he can switch back to his American slang when he needs to... but that one a bit the hard in Sg!