Re: Pronunciation Of _William

"It is pronounced as two syllables, "Will-yum", by most Britons, but as
three syllables, "Will-i-um" by careful speakers."

Peter M. Stewart

Peter Stewart...

Rubbish - this is not even controversial much less condemnatory.

Most speakers of most languages are careless of niceties, and that is
why pronunciation develops over time. How do you suppose the vowel
shift ever came about if everybody had been carefully enunciating every
word?

But of course this is just a smokescreen put up by the cowardly Hines:
his original folly was to INSIST that there are just TWO syllables in
William available to be pronounced. Now he implicitly acknowledges that
there are THREE after all, but he can't bring himself to withdraw the
juvenile insults that he cast about before he realised this.

Pathetic, as usual. The argument is not over the fact of pronunciation
but rather the theory of scansion. Even Richardson has the sense to see
that neither "Will-yum" nor "Will-i-um" is actually claimed by anyone
now to be wrong. Hines started out from the position that "Will-i-um"
must be wrong, and now he has changed his tune.

Peter Stewart...

Yes of course they are, and there is no shame or obloquy in it - daily
speaking is not performed carefully by most peope in most countries,
but there are some more careful speakers everywhere who say
"Will-i-um", some intermediate speakers who say "Will-i-yum", and many
careless of the syllabic count who say "Will-yum". The variance is a
matter of individual practice and care, but not of right and wrong.

By the way, it occurs to me that the second -i in William might have
been an affectation - if so, one of many - in the 14th century. I'm not
sure about this, but I have come across a few instances of "Willielmus"
in Latin from that time and can't at the moment recall any from earlier
documents.

Peter Stewart

Re: Pronunciation Of _William_