Shedyool

[lethargic_man]

Could I interest anyone with a paid account in running a poll on how to pronounce "schedule"? It's been the source of much heated debate in my department at work whilst we've been working on the Olympics. ;^) (Make sure to include options for whether voters are British or Transpondian.)

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Just go for the usage in the island in the middle where We Pronounce English Properly, and say "sked-yool".

[liv]

Pfft. Find me enough Irish people to convince me that there's a single accepted pronunciation. So far there doesn't seem to be consistency within any country.

[liv]

Exactly what options are you looking for? Just how to pronounce the initial consonants, or the vowel in the second syllable? And can you come up with a (possibly formal) description of what the options are? I can do 'sh' vs 'sk' because you can't go far wrong with that, but I'm not at all sure how I'd describe the different possible pronunciations of -dule.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Actually sh/sk alone will do nicely; that is, after all, the bone of contention.

[liv]

Done.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Thanks, though there's no need to be so narky about it ("wholly unscientific"). Also, please alter your references to "English" to "British"; my department's got Scots and Irishpersons in it!

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Hyperboreans ?

[ Yes, you have to go back to Strabo to find a term with no political weight to encompass both of those big islands. ]

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and like anyone else in my department's going to get what that means.

[liv]

there's no need to be so narky about it ("wholly unscientific")
Sorry, it's just a blog cliché. Nothing personal. And asking our friends lists is not exactly the most reliable way of determining the correct pronunciation, so I stand by my description.

Also, please alter your references to "English" to "British"; my department's got Scots and Irishpersons in it!
Polls can't be edited once created. But anyway, I did that intentionally; I was thinking specifically of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland when I included the 'other' option. There are several words that a Scots person would pronounce entirely differently from an English person, and I'm not at all sure if schedule is one of them or not. I possibly should have differentiated between regions within England too, but I decided that would make the poll too complicated. I don't think you're going to get a correlation with US / UK either, mind you, but we'll see how it turns out. (The people in your department can't vote, I'm afraid; there is no mechanism to vote anonymously in LJ polls.)

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I realised this myself; though rather too late. Still, I can bring the results to their attention afterwards... (I'd write my own little form only almost everyone's got root access on our development servers; there'd be nothing to stop people hacking the results.)

vote anonymously in LJ polls

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Create a throwaway journal for the purpose.

Re: vote anonymously in LJ polls

[liv]

I don't think that would do much good, unless you created a separate journal for each person who wanted to vote. Cos a particular username can vote only once. It would be more sensible if anyone who was interested commented to the post, since I do allow anon comments. And it would really be very little more awkward to generate statistics than from the poll in its current form.

Re: vote anonymously in LJ polls

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I mean the person who wants to vote anonymously can create a throwaway journal to do so. They get to control how anonymous they want to be too - one journal per poll, or one per week, or one overall, or whatever.

[darcydodo]

I say it both ways: skeh-dju-al when I'm actually saying it, and sheh-djul when I'm trying to remember how to spell it. :)