Pronunciation showdown
As you may recall, a few years ago we had a lively debate over the pronunciation of the word shone. Now another debate has begun. Say the following sentence out loud:
“The cowboy used his lasso to catch the cattle”
Did you pronounce lasso as la-SO or la-SU? I say the later and my roommate refuses to believe that people actually say it that way. According to the OED both are valid pronunciations. My Irish friend Nema says la-SU but everyone else I’ve asked around here says la-SO. Is it a Canadian/British/Irish vs American thing? Help me out people
I sure say la-su so I’d support the whole canadian vs american thing…how did this come up in conversation? I can’t believe you spend much time talking cattle.
You say la-su, I say la-so. So I hope it’s not an American v. Canadian thing. Although, like not knowing Celsius temperatures until 4 years ago, it could be an artifact of growing up near Detroit.
I say la-su! (and I’m Canadian)
I say it how you say it.
La-so as the noun and La-su as the verb? Hmm. I’ve heard both, but I think I use la-su, for both noun in verb, in whatever tense. (Canadian)
Hi Ceci
re: lasso, I got into this with the Americans on my cruise ship last fall, they all said La-so ("o" like "oh my") and I said la-sue (as in "I’m going to sue you!").
Regional differences are fascinating! There was a guy from Kan sas who couldn’t hear or say the two words "pin" and "pen" differently, to him they were identical and he heard US say them identically, he couldn’t tell them apart unless used in context! We needled him about that for agggggesssss.
But then I got mocked for "house" which I said without enough of an OW sound. They say HOW-se, and I said house, with I guess a softened sound, they mocked and wheedled me about that one, and at first I couldn’t really hear the difference either!
anyways, words are neat!