Americans may be fat and pushy; but people that speak the "queen's english" are the most horrible abomination on earth when it comes to pronouncing words; they have total disregard for correct pronunciation; ie. Jaguar. its two syllables; not three.
By 'eck. t's bin a while since a'ave bin accused of speakin' t'Queens English, but Jaguar is three syllables oop North :P
What about Tense? Shouldn't that be Tens? Does that make sens?
No need to be on the defens, it isn't a offens to pretens a lense is a lens?
;)
Tense, sense and defense all have soft "s" sounds at the end: ten-sss. Also they are homophones for tents, cents and sitting on de fence. =)
Lens/lense have the "z" sound instead... roughly rhyming with lends, tends, sends and defends.
You beat me to the punch on that one! There are some folks who seem to think that any word that ends with an "S" just HAS to have an apostrophy in it. That drive's me insane! :) Go take some nice photo's!
Originally posted by muckpond:
at least it's not len's.
sincerely,
mr. anti-improper use of possessive apostrophe man
It seems that the majority think that it should be "lens" on both sides of the pond :o)
Just because the majority spells it a certain way does not make it right. It only makes it the majorities' spelling. Kinda' like being a boss doesn't make you right, it only makes you the boss. At one time the majority thought the world was flat and the earth the center of the universe.....and other such things. An irratant is not the spelling of the word lense, but rather those inconsiderate drivers that drive while talking on their cell phones in a hurry to get 2 cars ahead so they can be stopped in traffic in front of you. Or those folks who drive to slow. Or the ones who drive too fast. Or those that think differently than I do. Those are the real irritants. What's wrong with people anyway????? Any questions on what is right, just ask me. BTW, it is lense.
"lense" is an accepted variant and perhaps more widely used among those who speak the Queen's English. Opinions from the other side of the pond?
Americans may be fat and pushy; but people that speak the "queen's english" are the most horrible abomination on earth when it comes to pronouncing words; they have total disregard for correct pronunciation; ie. Jaguar. its two syllables; not three.
No,no,no. Jaguar is pronounced 'JAG-U-AR' not 'JAG-WA'
"lense" is an accepted variant and perhaps more widely used among those who speak the Queen's English. Opinions from the other side of the pond?
Americans may be fat and pushy; but people that speak the "queen's english" are the most horrible abomination on earth when it comes to pronouncing words; they have total disregard for correct pronunciation; ie. Jaguar. its two syllables; not three.
Hmmm... I must retract my earlier statement; the OED does NOT list "lense" as a variant of "lens", nor does it say (obviously) that it is the otiginal form. There IS an obsolete word "lense" but it hasn't been used since the 15th century and it has nothing to do with optics; it's a verb.
Hmmm... I must retract my earlier statement; the OED does NOT list "lense" as a variant of "lens", nor does it say (obviously) that it is the otiginal form. There IS an obsolete word "lense" but it hasn't been used since the 15th century and it has nothing to do with optics; it's a verb.
R.
Robert,
This post forced me to review my 2 dictionaries and thesaurus. I could not find lense anywhere. This might lead some to conclude that I was wrong in an earlier post, however, since I've never been wrong, it must be a printing error of every dictionary on the planet. I believe it is a conspiracy to undermine my authority, so I reject it. Therefore, the word lense is hereby proclaimed to be authorized.
Over here we pronounce Aluminum as AL-u-mini-um...!!!!!!!!!!
But we spell it differently
Ditto for Australia, New Zealand, Germany - those are the only ones I know for certain, but I believe everybody (who uses that particular word or a close relative of it like in Italian) other than the US spells and pronounces it aluminium.
By the way.... this German/Aussie who is quite anal about spelling also believes the word should be LENS.
