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Mr. Tom Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

Treating one-syllabled words as two-syllabled.

Hi

(If the wording of the following question is twisted, please edit it. Thanks!)

I would like to know if it's common among native speakers to treat one-syllabled words as two-syllabled words or vice versa, especially when they are relaxed or not very formal....?

The only examples that spring to mind are:

Treating Philip as flip or vice versa

or treating syllogism as a two-syllabled word.

Many thanks for yoru time,

Tom
  

Top answer

). Your two suggestions don't seem plausible, and right now the only instance I can think of of two syllables running into one is "medi(a)eval", which tends to change from "med-ee-ee-val" into "med-ee-val". Your "flip" example reminded me that some people (notably Scottish and Irish people) pronounce "film" as "fill-um", but this is more a dialect difference than anything to do with changing from one to the other in casual speech.

— Mr Wordy

  • ).
  • Your two suggestions don't seem plausible, and right now the only instance I can think of of two syllables running into one is "medi(a)eval", which tends to change from "med-ee-ee-val" into "med-ee-val".
  • Your "flip" example reminded me that some people (notably Scottish and Irish people) pronounce "film" as "fill-um", but this is more a dialect difference than anything to do with changing from one to the other in casual speech.
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4 Answers
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Off the top of my head, I'd say this is pretty rare in English (now someone will probably come along with a whole slew of examples!).

Your two suggestions don't seem plausible, and right now the only instance I can think of of two syllables running into one is "medi(a)eval", which tends to change from "med-ee-ee-val" into "med-ee-val".

Your "flip" example reminded me that some p
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It completely depends on the context (most probably not formal) and only (usually) in a "personality":

Dude - "dood" or "doo-duh"
What's up? - "wat-sup" or "wahzup"
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PureGuavaDude - "dood" or "doo-duh"
I've never heard "dude" pronounced with two syllables.
PureGuavaWhat's up? - "wat-sup" or "wahzup"
Right, but this is not changing the number of syllables.
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Mr Wordy
PureGuavaDude - "dood" or "doo-duh"
I've never heard "dude" pronounced with two syllables.
Just depends on how you (want to) say it, for whatever reason; accent, joking, etc.

Feild - "fee-yild"

Mr Wordy
PureGuavaWhat's up? - "wat-sup" or "wahzup"
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