{"id":154,"date":"2010-10-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/?p=154"},"modified":"2015-03-22T19:59:51","modified_gmt":"2015-03-22T23:59:51","slug":"squish-the-middle-vowel-in-some-3-syllable-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/squish-the-middle-vowel-in-some-3-syllable-words\/","title":{"rendered":"“Squish” the middle vowel in some 3-syllable words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Take a look at these 3-syllable words:
\nBusiness<\/strong><\/em>
\nChocolate<\/strong><\/em>
\nCorporate<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

If we read them as if English was a syllabic language, like Japanese for example, then we would read\/pronounce them “bus-i-ness”, “choc-o-late” and “cor-por-ate”, right?<\/p>\n

But that is not the way we say it, at least here in North America.
\nThe way the word is written may appear to indicate that there are 3 syllables but we pronounce them like 2, and to do that we “squish” the middle vowel.
\nTry this:
\n“Bus-ness, Choc-late, Cor-prate.”<\/p>\n

Okay that’s a start, but now we have to obey the “-ate” rule, which states that the “-ate” at the end of a sentence is pronounced like “it” if the word is a noun or adjective, and “8” if the word is being used as a verb.\u00a0 For example, “The graduates will graduate in June<\/em>” is pronounced “The gradu”its” will gradu”8″ in June.”<\/em><\/p>\n

So now when we put it all together, we should read our original three words like so (capitals are used to show stress):<\/em>
\nBIZ-niss
\nCHOK-lit
\nKOR-prit<\/p>\n

Try this sentence:\u00a0 “The corporate (kor<\/strong>-prit) office of the Dreamy Chocolate (chok<\/strong>-lit) Company reports that business (biz<\/strong>-niss) is running well ahead of schedule and will produce lots of chocolates (chok<\/strong>-lits) in time for Christmas.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take a look at these 3-syllable words: Business Chocolate Corporate If we read them as if English was a syllabic language, like Japanese for example, then we would read\/pronounce them “bus-i-ness”, “choc-o-late” and “cor-por-ate”, right? But that is not the way we say it, at least here in North America. The way the word is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[535,537],"tags":[617,580,618],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esl-cultural-communications","category-speak-english-better","tag-accent-reduction","tag-business-english","tag-pronunciation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":764,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions\/764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}