Board 8 > How many syllables are in the word "orange"?

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

orange rhymes with door hinge

two syllables

No it doesn't

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sure it does

or - inge
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how the fuck is fire one syllable

this topic infuriates me

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Do you guys say "figh-yer" or something??

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Johnbobb posted...

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far

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https://tinyurl.com/yykpfoyq

that's definitely 2

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this may be a dumb thought, but I feel like the theoretical ideal pronounciation of fire is one syllable, but no human can actually produce that sound.
Like I cant make my brain process it as distinct from figher, a hypothetical word that means more figh.
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Do you also pronounce ire like "eye-yer"??

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Waluigi1 posted...

Do you also pronounce ire like "eye-yer"??

like eye - err. No y sound in the second half.
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CassandraCain posted...

how the fuck is fire one syllable

this topic infuriates me

Because words like "fire" contain triphthongs, which is basically when you have three vowel sounds so close together they can be pronounced in one syllable. Thus, it's technically one syllable. Depending on where you're from and how you've been raised to speak, however, it can be hard to say such sounds in one syllable, and thus it ends up pronounced in two.

Poets used to take advantage of this by going back and forth on such words as one syllable or two depending on what they needed.

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Yeah my instinct here was 2 vs 3

1 is crazy to me

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Hmm well that makes sense, and I can force myself to say it with what I guess sounds like one syllable, but it's too short imo. It needs that extra kick

And google sounds like its pronouncing with two syllables as well

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"Hour" is another example that tends to be a little bit easier for people to understand how it works, since more people tend to say it closer to one syllable than they do fire.

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

like eye - err. No y sound in the second half.

So two syllables though?

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yeah

I guess its pretty much the same as I pronounce iron just without the n
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XIII_rocks posted...

Yeah my instinct here was 2 vs 3

1 is crazy to me

What kind of absolute madman pronounces orange with three syllables

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Waluigi1 posted...

Do you guys say "figh-yer" or something??

yep
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yeah people acting like three syllables is somehow more legitimate than one is the legit baffling part of this topic

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LeonhartFour posted...

yeah people acting like three syllables is somehow more legitimate than one is the legit baffling part of this topic

Well, it's probably easier for those people to imagine putting extra emphasis on the end of the word over just completely eliminating the a. One is a case of weird emphasis on something already there. The other is eliminating a vowel for no reason.

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eliminating a syllable is way more common than adding an extra one

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LeonhartFour posted...

eliminating a syllable is way more common than adding an extra one

Eh, maybe, but the contexts are different. Look at how each is normally portrayed in media, for instance. Adding a syllable tends to be more for emphasis/over-pronunciation, whereas eliminating a syllable tends to be done to make somebody look less educated/harder to understand.

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oh-ren-ji

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StealThisSheen posted...

Eh, maybe, but the contexts are different. Look at how each is normally portrayed in media, for instance. Adding a syllable tends to be more for emphasis/over-pronunciation, whereas eliminating a syllable tends to be done to make somebody look less educated/harder to understand.

yeah well media is STU-PI-D

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I say both "ornj" and "or-enj" but I think it's one syllable more often that two

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfDkbRDlvMo#t=18m53s

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TomNook posted...

How many syllables are in the word "February"?
2 or 4

I once tried convinced my wife January was spelt Janruary, she quickly caught on a hit me.

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Over 3000

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CoolCly posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfDkbRDlvMo#t=18m53s

Thank you. I remember seeing that as a kid but I completely forgot the name of the show.

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I'm pretty sure I'm physically incapable of vocalizing orange as 1 syllable so that alone is enough for 3 to make a lot more sense to me.

There's also the fact that Japanese people that never learned English would pronounce it as oh-ren-ji, and since I watch anime a lot that means I've heard 3 syllables more than 1 syllable also.

(The answer is of course 2 though)
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This is why English is a plague.

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pyresword posted...

I'm pretty sure I'm physically incapable of vocalizing orange as 1 syllable so that alone is enough for 3 to make a lot more sense to me

Can you not say ornj?
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Most Brits say figh-yer.

I can't say fire with one syllable without having an American accent.

Orange is also 2 syllables

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Why not both?

I usually end up saying it as "ornj" when using it as a plural, and "or-enj" for singular.

I guess that makes me weird looking at the poll.

How can we possibly hope to address the central question without first determining if we are talking about the color or the fruit? The cognitive bias formed around the historical and cultural ramifications of each is quite staggering when one delves into the mysteries of which originated from which. Tracing the origin of the fruit to the earliest incarnation I care to find, it comes from a Sanskrit word "nranga" which, should one sound it out, has three distinct syllables that one can sound. In fact, 'orange' is a relatively recent concept when speaking of the color too. Prior to the 1500's, the color would have been called 'yellow-red', which, to provide an answer of the fullest measure, has no fewer than three syllables in it.

So it appears, by all accounts, factoring in the volume of history that far outweighs any modern pretense at conceptual understanding, that the word to represent 'orange', regardless of type, does, in fact, contain three syllables.

tl;dr: The answer is three

What am I doing with my life?


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Anyway

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TomNook posted...

This.

Ar-inj > Ar-in-jah > Arnj

hey you're that ar-in-jah

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It's officially 2 syllables, but I'm pretty sure the way i say it could be construed as only one

Think of the word "ornery". That's 3 syllables. Orn-er-ee

Take away the third syllable. You then have "orner".

Take away the second syllable. You now have "orn".

Add a j consonant to the end. You now have "ornj", that's one syllable, that's how i pronounce orange, and i should enunciate better

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It's a super odd sound, hence the naming of the old comic strip "rhymes with orange"

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Can you not say ornj?

I was able to do it when I tried but it did take me several attempts to actually figure out how it worked.
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