--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Doug Ewell" <dewell@...> wrote:

> Peter T. Daniels <grammatim at worldnet dot att dot net> wrote:
>
> > Syllables are _extremely_ important to writing systems.
>
> Apparently not in the English writing system :-) , for then if

Hamtramck

> really is a three-syllable word, there should be a written vowel

before

> the "c".
>
> > If there's no third syllable in the Michigan town, why isn't it
> > /h&mtr&Nk/?
>
> Would the /k/ necessarily change the /m/ to /N/? (I forgot the

word for

> this type of change.)
>
> Not that I pronounce "Hamtramck" all that often, living in

California

> and all, but when I do it's about two and a half syllables. It
> certainly doesn't sound quite like "Hamtrammick" or "Hamtrammock."

The previous summer in Poland we had made excruciating efforts to be
correct in our pronunciation of Polish but when we went to
Hamtramck, we happily accepted that it rhymed with hammock. It was
a cultural experience, an American town that had been French, then
German and now Polish. We didn't even bother pronouncing the
surrounding city /detRWo/.

Suzanne McCarthy

> -Doug Ewell
> Fullerton, California
> http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/