tyranny & tyrant

Question

Hi,(1) I understand all native speakers ( no matter whether they are AE or BE speakers) pronounce the first syllable of tyranny exactly as they do the first syllable of typical?On the other hand, when you pronounce the word tyrant, you use the diphthong "ai", don't you?Pairs like tyranny/tyrant are especially difficult for many English learners to deal with... :-)Any other examples of "confusing pairs" similar to tyranny/tyrant?(2)  privacy / privateHow do most English speakers pronounce privacy these days? (It is the first syllable that interests me of course)Many dictionaries give alternative pronunciations.... what kind of English speakers still pronounce privacy with the short "i" sound (not the diphthong "ai")?mus-te

Rover_KE · Accepted Answer

Good question.

As a BE speaker, I favour the long 'i' (I wouldn't call it 'ai'), but accept both versions with equanimity.

Rover

CalifJim · Answer

MUSCOVITEwhat kind of English speakers still pronounce privacy with the short "i"

The British.

MUSCOVITEdiphthong "ai"

That's the American pronunciation.

MUSCOVITEAny other examples of "confusing pairs" similar to tyranny/tyrant?

I'm sure there are, but it's hard to know exactly what kind of pairs you want. There are tons of ways that pairs can be confusing.

farce, scarce; horse, worse; tomb, comb; mint, pint; disciple, discipline; disciple, multiple; drive, driven; heave, heaven; are, area; plaque, opaque; policy, icy; trivial, vial; aviary, diary; alias, bias; friend, fiend; depict, indict; photograph, photography; familiar, liar; octave, Octavius; job, Job; word, sword; later, lateral; we, ewe; divers, diverse; corps, corpse; spaniel, cockatiel; compile, fragile, automobile, simile; destine, cuisine, masculine; doctrine, doctrinal; divide, division; elide, elision; concede, concession; convene, convention; diameter, diametrically; democracy, democratic; monotone, monotony; hypnosis, hypnotic; misanthrope, misanthropic; hydrogen, hydrogenate; ...

CJ

MUSCOVITE · Answer

CalifJimbut it's hard to know exactly what kind of pairs you want. There are tons of ways that pairs can be confusing.

OK. Let me explain in more detail what I was asking about...

The words tyranny and tyrant are obviously VERY CLOSELY related (both originated from the Latin words 'tyrannus', 'tyrannia', etc.). I am not sure but... can I say that tyranny and tyrant are "cognates"?
However, for some reason the starting (stressed!!) syllables in these related words are pronounced quite differently?

Similarly, the words private and privacy appear to have the same root? However some BE speakers seem to pronounce the starting (stressed!) syllables in these words very differently?

Why it is "so important" for me to separate the pairs tyrant/tyranny, private/privacy (BE only) (category 1) from the much more common (and predictable :-) pairs such as "kind/kindness", "blind/blindness", "lazy/laziness", etc.etc.etc (category 2)?

For category 2, if an English learner knows how one form (e.g. the adjective) is pronounced, he/she will have no problems pronouncing the other forms (derivatives)
As for category 1, even if a student knows how one word is pronounced (for the given pair), he/she may be wrong (blindly) extrapolating the same pronunciation pattern to the other word (=derivative form).

Which of the examples included in your list belong to category 1? Take the pair "monotone/monotony" for example.
It does not seem to match Category 1 just because different syllables are stressed in the adjective and the noun.

CalifJim · Answer

OK. So you want pairs that are cognates, that have the stress on the first syllable, and that have different pronunciations for the first syllable. None of those I listed have those characteristics. Maybe you've already found the only two there are.

CJ

An0nymous · Answer

There are a number of these spread throughout the English language, for example:

private - privy

angel - angelic

marine - mariner

canine - canid

minus - miniscule

Minos - minotaur

CalifJim · Answer

An0nymousangel - angelic marine - mariner

These don't count. He doesn't want examples where the first syllable is not stressed in both words of the pair.

CJ

Raindoctor · Answer

penal (long e); penalty (short e)
Your examples:
tyrant (long i); tyranny (short i)
private (long i); privacy (short i in BrE; long i in AmE)

There is a different way to go about derived words (and cognates): what drives long/short vowels?

Historically, there are two antagnostic processes: (1) open syllable lengthening and (2) homorganic lengthening made short vowels long; (3) trisyallbic laxing and (4) precluster shortening shortened long vowels.

penal (long e): open syllabic lengthening
child (long i): homorganic lengthening
children (short i): precluster shortening
penalty, tyranny (short e, short i): trisyllabix laxing
visa, vice, capo, puma (long i, long a, long u): open syllabic lengthening

In words like vice, rice, nice, rose, etc, phonics books and English teachers sell the silent-e rule. However, they miss the open syllable lengthening. In these words, there are three processes: (a) open syllable lengthening; (b) great vowel shift; (c) silent e

An0nymous · Answer

Here are a few more:

primary - primer

sucrose - sugar

virus - virulent

viola - violin

vine - vineyard

via - viaduct

vein - venous

tone - tonic

vend - venal

money - monetary

triple - triumvirate

sacred - sacerdotal

relative - relation

MUSCOVITE · Answer

CalifJim,
An0nymous,

Thank you so much for your help with the list!
To my surprise there are only very few "too academic", "too rare" words in this list :-) ... perhaps only 'sacerdotal' deserves to be considered "very academic"?

I will need to brush up the suggested list a little (as CalifJim mentioned, some example pairs do not meet my criteria/filter actually). Anyway, the list is great! Again, thank you very much!!

raindoctor,
Thank you for pointing out a different way to deal with derived forms and cognates!

CalifJim · Answer

MUSCOVITEThank you so much for your help with the list!

You're welcome! I was surprised that you wanted to restrict the list to vowel changes in the first syllable. I suppose I should expect the next list you'd like to see is for the second syllable. If so, you can start your new list with arthritis - arthritic.

CJ

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