--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "suzmccarth" <suzmccarth@...> wrote:

> --- 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/.

I meant to say detRWA, I think.

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