When I was a kid, there was this piano-playing, flashy guy on TV who I would pronounce as Libber-AH-chee. Okay, so far so good…But at that time I was reading far above my grade level, as my IQ is in the middle 100’s somewhere. I came across his name, and I thought it was pronounced LIBE-race. Yes, LIBE rhyming with SCRIBE. I thought they were two different guys!My dad could never pronounce Vietnam or median properly, and he respectively would say VETTIN’-am, and muh-DINE.My sister always says that, as a way of controlling pet overpopulation, it is often a very good idea to get your female dog or cat SPADED. Um…OUCH! I just picture that poor animal, strapped to something while that small garden shovel is headed right toward her…And, of course, up to a certain time in my life, I called the second largest city in Massachusetts “WAR-Chester.” This mistake is VERY common for Americans, even though the “h” is nowhere to be seen. I was corrected in 1966 by somebody from Brooklyn, and I’ve said it correctly since. Three years ago in Billings (Montana), somebody asked me if I wanted the similarly-named sauce on my steak (actually named for the original place of that name in England), and she VERY prominently pronounced it as a 5-syllable word. [War-Chester-Shyer]I’m sure I can think of many more, but other than Worcester, I won’t go into how I’ve mispronounced place names. Those can be almost endless. I won’t give the answers, but in the USA consider how Sequim (Washington), Shawano (Wisconsin), Refugio (Texas), Houston Street (Manhattan NY City), Louisville (Georgia), and the granddaddy of them Natchitoches (Louisiana…BAD hint, it’s three syllables) are pronounced. Elderly people tend to pronounce Norfolk, Nebraska as NOR-FORK (both syllables stressed equally); how did Johnny Carson pronounce it? And NEWARK is pronounced as expected in New York, more like “Noork” in New Jersey, “Nerk” in Ohio, and it sounds like two distinct words in Delaware [New Ark].
As an adjective, that's the proper pronunciation - the blessed event. As a verb it's pronounced with a single syllable, bless.d. You will often see it spelled - blest. It's still the past tense of bless - they were blessed (or blest) with a beautiful new child.
Some native speakers’ dialects or accents probably lead to “been” and “bin” sounding alike. In this case it’s wrong to say their variety of English is wrong.But none of the “standard” forms of English I’m aware of conflate these two. So if your goal is to speak standard English pronounced as well as you can then you should try to distinguish the two in your speech.If you fail at this, don’t worry, you’re not alone and it will be wrong for people to criticize you when you’ve actually tried.
The sub-question, of course, is just how do they pronounce it in Starbucks. I’m willing to bet that the Starbucks in Barnacle Bay, Maine has servers who pronounce it quite differently from those in Bubba Flats, Tennessee. I’ve heard “venni” “vain-tea” “venn tea”, etc… Mind, the person saying “venni” probably also adds ten and ten to get “twenny”.The “proper” pronunciation is pretty close to the proper pronunciation of “twenty” in American English. The e is a little different, sort of trending towards the ei in “neighbor” but not quite there.My favorite barista terminology anecdote:In the late 80s as the New Coffee trend was settling in, Starbucks hadn’t infested NYC yet and we had a few Starbucks Style small chains around the city. Each, it seemed, called their various sizes by different names. Some places insisted on “dopio”, others “grande”, etc…. I was in the airport in Nashville and it may have been the first barista type shop in the area and, as I later reckoned, had local help who’d probably been working the Piggly Wiggly the week before….Me(not looking at menu board): Can I have a dopio latte (dough pea oh lah tay).Counter guy: (puzzled look)Me: Er, a grande (grahn day) latte?Counter guy: I don’t think I have that.Me: Can I have a big ol’ latte?Counter guy: Sure thing! Gimme a sec.I got my coffee. That’s all that matters.
No, it is not correct to pronounce ‘the’ as “thee” all the time.It is pronounced “thee” when it is followed by a word beginning with a vowel. For example : The earth.If ‘the’ is followed by a word beginning with a consonant sound, it is pronounced fricative dental voiced consonant+schwa vowel. For example : The girls.It is pronounced “thee” when we want to emphasize the following noun even if it begins with a consonant. For example : I said the(thee) sun not the son. Here the noun (sun) has been emphasized.
Did you ever watch WWE. If you remember the announcements that were made for undertaker and Rock's entry.Wasn't it Thee Undertaker and Thuh Rock?Normally, we pronounce the with a short sound (like "thuh"). But when the comes before a vowel sound, we pronounce it as a long "thee".So it will be- Thee apple, Thee egg, Thee icecream, Thee orange, The umbrellaAre you getting anything?It is important to understand that it is what we say that matters, not what we write. It is the sound that matters, not the letter used in writing a word. So we use a long "thee" before a vowel sound, not necessarily before a vowel.For example it will be Thuh house as the we pronounce house with the letter ‘h’ and 'h' is a consonant but it will be Thee hour as we pronounce hour as our and 'o' is a vowel.Well, fortunately or unfortunately there is another case too.Emphatic the [thee]When we wish to place emphasis on a particular word, we can use "emphatic the" [thee], whether or not the word begins with a consonant or vowel sound. For example:A: I saw the [thuh] President yesterday.B: What! The [thee] President of the United States?A: Yes, exactly!
It isn’t wrong to correct people’s grammar or pronunciation, but it depends on the context and how it’s done. For example, I read an answer today in Quora from somebody who kept writing “hung” instead of hanged. Somebody left a comment explaining that it was wrong. The person who wrote the answer replied to the comment with a very defensive comment, indicating that he was fine with what he wrote. Quora has a “suggest edits” feature that would have allowed that person to offer corrections without any public comments, and it’s more likely that the person would have simply clicked on “accept.”The problem isn’t correcting people. The problem is embarrassing them or making them feel stupid. When you correct somebody’s grammar, you might be coming across as saying “I know better than you, and I’m smarter than you.” If people feel that you are being obnoxious, then you won’t accomplish anything.I don’t make a point of correcting people’s grammar and usage in public. The exception is that if I see something abhorrent in a school setting, I will point out for the sake of the students that teachers and staff should be careful what they present to students.If you are helping somebody whose native language isn’t the one being spoken or written, you are more likely to be thanked than chastised.
Do you know How to pronounce wrogn?Hope this helps.