Pronunciations of dinosaur/prehistoric animal names

[andrewsaurus rex]

Plee-zee-oh-saw  not Plee-zee-oh-sore?  Saur is pronounced 'saw' not 'sore'?  If so, boy have i been screwing that one up.

[DinoToyForum]

Plee-zee-oh-saw  not Plee-zee-oh-sore?  Saur is pronounced 'saw' not 'sore'?  If so, boy have i been screwing that one up.

You pronounce "saw" and "sore" differently enough to notice? I don't!

[SBell]

Plee-zee-oh-saw  not Plee-zee-oh-sore?  Saur is pronounced 'saw' not 'sore'?  If so, boy have i been screwing that one up.

You pronounce "saw" and "sore" differently enough to notice? I don't!

Almost like you have a British accent or something 

I recall in the grand old PBS 'Dinosaur' show, the narrator pronounced 'dinosaur' with almost a hard 'z', like dino-Zahr. It's always stuck with me (although it's been over 30 years, I could be misremembering

[DinoToyForum]

Plee-zee-oh-saw  not Plee-zee-oh-sore?  Saur is pronounced 'saw' not 'sore'?  If so, boy have i been screwing that one up.

You pronounce "saw" and "sore" differently enough to notice? I don't!

Almost like you have a British accent or something 

I recall in the grand old PBS 'Dinosaur' show, the narrator pronounced 'dinosaur' with almost a hard 'z', like dino-Zahr. It's always stuck with me (although it's been over 30 years, I could be misremembering

I can 'sore' a piece of wood and my arm will feel 'saw' afterward. 

[Crackington]

Porsh-a became 'trendy' during the 80's as yuppies tried to show how sophisticated they were by pronouncing it correctly.  But it was totally obnoxious, for some reason.  Maybe i just found it obnoxious because my ex brother in law used to do it all the time, and he was one of the most obnoxious people i ever met....lol.

How interesting- that's the opposite to my recollection. The yuppies said "porsh" probably best exemplified by the young Emma Thompson playing one in the Young Ones University Challenge episode where she blurts out "I've got a porsh". I was thinking that it was pronounced "porsha" in the 70s, probably when kids were playing Top Trumps as we never actually saw one up North 

Pronunciation is a strange thing though as I remember being befuddled when Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" tv series aired in the UK. He pronounced it slowly, something like "Koze-moze" to my ears!

"Plee-zee-oh-saw" for me btw, no differentiation between "saw" and "sore" either lol!

[andrewsaurus rex]

great, so now on top of trying to figure out how to pronounce all these dinosaur names, we have to cope with different accents as well.  Across the pond 'saw' and 'sore' are pronounced very differently  You Brits need to learn how to speak proper English. 

As for Porsche, i guess more precisely it was the snobby yuppies that pronounced it porsh-a.  They and car aficionados, both groups wanting to show off how sophisticated they were.  It was funny though, they said 'BMW' the way any English speaking person would.  No German pronunciation of the three letters, which is very different from the English pronunciation of those three letters...huh.

[DinoToyForum]

great, so now on top of trying to figure out how to pronounce all these dinosaur names, we have to cope with different accents as well. Across the pond 'saw' and 'sore' are pronounced very differently You Brits need to learn how to speak proper English. 

As for Porsche, i guess more precisely it was the snobby yuppies that pronounced it porsh-a.  They and car aficionados, both groups wanting to show off how sophisticated they were.  It was funny though, they said 'BMW' the way any English speaking person would.  No German pronunciation of the three letters, which is very different from the English pronunciation of those three letters...huh.

Please show us, phonetically, how you pronounce them differently over there! 

[andrewsaurus rex]

i'll take up the challenge.

saw is pronounced like 'ta', as in 'ta ta for now' but with an 's' sound instead of a 't'.

sore (or saur) is pronounced like 'war' only with an 's' sound instead of a 'w'.

Not phonetically per se but i think i nailed it.   

[DinoToyForum]

i'll take up the challenge.

saw is pronounced like 'ta', as in 'ta ta for now' but with an 's' sound instead of a 't'.

sore (or saur) is pronounced like 'war' only with an 's' sound instead of a 'w'.

Not phonetically per se but i think i nailed it.   

To be clear, how do you pronounce 'ta', tar as in star, or tah as in tally?

[andrewsaurus rex]

i'll take up the challenge.

saw is pronounced like 'ta', as in 'ta ta for now' but with an 's' sound instead of a 't'.

sore (or saur) is pronounced like 'war' only with an 's' sound instead of a 'w'.

Not phonetically per se but i think i nailed it.   

To be clear, how do you pronounce 'ta', tar as in star, or tah as in tally?

Neither.  i pronounce it the way British people say it because we don't say 'ta' over here, so i've only heard it said in British movies and tv shows.  'ta'....rhymes with paw.

[DinoToyForum]

i'll take up the challenge.

saw is pronounced like 'ta', as in 'ta ta for now' but with an 's' sound instead of a 't'.

sore (or saur) is pronounced like 'war' only with an 's' sound instead of a 'w'.

Not phonetically per se but i think i nailed it. 

To be clear, how do you pronounce 'ta', tar as in star, or tah as in tally?

Neither.  i pronounce it the way British people say it because we don't say 'ta' over here, so i've only heard it said in British movies and tv shows.  'ta'....rhymes with paw.

There's a huge variety of accents and dialects in Britain, but I've never heard "ta" pronounced in a way that rhymes with 'paw' as in pore, spore (and rhymes with claw)! I never say it myself, but where I live it is pronounced "tar" as in star. This isn't getting us very far! You're basically saying you pronounce "saw" like "paw", and "paw" like "saw", which is just going in circles.

[andrewsaurus rex]

this is a hopeless endeavour...lol.  Neither of us can be sure of how the other pronounces specific words.  It matters not, you say potato and i say potato. 

The only other thing i can think of is:  when British pop stars sing, the way they pronounce the words sounds like, to our ears, they have lost their British accent and are pronouncing the words the way (most) North Americans do.  So, for all the examples i have outlined above, imagine them  being pronounced the way a Brit pop star would sing them. 

[andrewsaurus rex]

forget all the pop star stuff above.   It just occurred to me that you've seen Jurassic Park.  So you know how Alan Grant pronounces 'dinosaur'.   So the 'saur' in dinosaur is the same way i, and most others over here, pronounce the 'saur' in plesiosaur.  It's also the same way (most) North Americans say the word 'sore'.

fin.

[DinoToyForum]

this is a hopeless endeavour...lol.  Neither of us can be sure of how the other pronounces specific words.  It matters not, you say potato and i say potato. 

The only other thing i can think of is:  when British pop stars sing, the way they pronounce the words sounds like, to our ears, they have lost their British accent and are pronouncing the words the way (most) North Americans do.  So, for all the examples i have outlined above, imagine them  being pronounced the way a Brit pop star would sing them. 

It's not hopeless if you break down your pronunciation phonetically into their constituent sound or sounds to avoid ambiguity. We wouldn't even have to speak the same language. For me they are essentially identical.

Saur = 'saw' (rhymes with shore, soar, sore)
Saw = 'saw' (rhymes with shore, soar, sore)

So, out of context you wouldn't know if I was saying saw or saur. I could say the sentence "A big dino saw some wood" and "a big dinosaur, some wood" and it sounds exactly the same.

So, without asking me to imagine how Jarvis Cocker would say "ta" , how do you say Saur and Saw phonetically?

...I saw your second reply and we clearly pronounce "saur" the same way, as Alan Grant in JP. So, as I said above, saur = saw (rhymes with shore, soar, sore).

You pronounce "Saw" differently to that? How?

I presume for you Saw = 'Sah' (rhymes with far, char, bar)?

[Shane]

I think we can all agree that Mr. DNA doesn't know what he's doing basically pronouncing it like "dino SOUR".

[andrewsaurus rex]

ah it's the pronunciation of 'saw' that was the problem.  saur=sore but 'saw' is very different...not sure how to explain it as we may be pronouncing the words i use to explain it differently.  When i say 'saw' there is absolutely no 'r' sound in it, unlike 'saur'.  Maybe it would like you saying 'sah'? Or it's the way tweety bird says saw (only he has a speech impediment so he says 'tah' a puddy tat) but saw rhymes with tweety bird's 'tah'.

[DinoToyForum]

I think we can all agree that Mr. DNA doesn't know what he's doing basically pronouncing it like "dino SOUR".

Yes, Mr DNA somehow gets two syllables out of "saur": 'sow-urh'!

[DinoToyForum]

ah it's the pronunciation of 'saw' that was the problem.  saur=sore but 'saw' is very different...not sure how to explain it as we may be pronouncing the words i use to explain it differently.  When i say 'saw' there is absolutely no 'r' sound in it, unlike 'saur'.  Maybe it would like you saying 'sah'? Or it's the way tweety bird says saw (only he has a speech impediment so he says 'tah' a puddy tat) but saw rhymes with tweety bird's 'tah'.

OK! Well, the way Alan Grant says "saur" and the way Tweety says "taw" more or less rhyme to my ear!

[Shane]

ah it's the pronunciation of 'saw' that was the problem.  saur=sore but 'saw' is very different...not sure how to explain it as we may be pronouncing the words i use to explain it differently.  When i say 'saw' there is absolutely no 'r' sound in it, unlike 'saur'.  Maybe it would like you saying 'sah'? Or it's the way tweety bird says saw (only he has a speech impediment so he says 'tah' a puddy tat) but saw rhymes with tweety bird's 'tah'.

OK! Well, the way Alan Grant says "saur" and the way Tweety says "taw" more or less rhyme to my ear!

It is absurdly difficult to explain differences in phonetic pronunciation through text, and in the abstract there is a fairly slight difference between the American and British pronunciations, but I'd say the main difference is there's no R sound at the end of the American "saw". It's like you're beginning to say "sore" and just kind of letting the word hang halfway through before adding the R sound.

This all may be further complicated by the fact that Sam Neill is a New Zealand actor doing an American accent, and while he does an admirable job, it's definitely not 100% the way an American would pronounce things.

[andrewsaurus rex]

" It is absurdly difficult to explain differences in phonetic pronunciation through text "

No kidding. 



Dino Toy Forum:  when Grant says dinoSAUR, there is a definite R sound at the end.  When Tweety says 'taw' (i spelt it with an h because i know you pronounce words that end in 'w' with an R sound), there is no R sound at all.  It's so interesting that you hear it and i don't.

Anyway, we are at an impasse because i have no intention of learning how to write words phonetically and even if i did, i would probably screw up when trying to write words phonetically.