August???

[Lalliella]

Hmm

I Have an extremely unusual and uncommon name, much much much more unusual than August. And I’m fine with it. An unusual name usually brings an unusual person 😊
And August really isn’t that unusual...I know loads of people with names that are names of the months. It’s really not that strange.
And you couldn’t care less what people thought of your kids names but felt it appropriate to begin this thread... 🙄
I feel like at this stage I’d be feeling pretty silly, but you still keep going even though the majority have called you out as being quite unreasonable.

And August really isn’t that unusual...I know loads of people with names that are names of the months. It’s really not that strange.

The month of August was named after Augustus. August (the name) is a variation of Augustus.

The same as the month of July was named after Julius, and Julia/Julian are variant names based on Julius.

It’s a bit perverse (aka incorrect) to insist a boy named August has been named after a month of the year.

If you called a baby Julia, you wouldn’t expect people to remark “Ah yes! After the month!”

Gobsmacked by the sheer volume of responses who don’t realise that the name is not a reference to the month 🤦🏻‍♀️ Well unless you count the fact the month was named after the name...

Ah! Cross post with the one above...🤣

Gus really does not rhyme with wuss
So what does Gus rhyme with and what does wuss rhyme with because Gus and Wuss both both an uh sound in them middle imp

@FitterHappierMoreProductive

Ah! Cross post with the one above...🤣

i wouldn’t particularly want to be called August personally

Because you already have a firm opinion and view of it whereas a newborn baby doesn’t.

There are also plenty of people who dislike having average/ common names. I grew up with many of them and they hated having to be called by their name and surname because there were so many people within their class and/or grade with the same forename and having to consort ask which person the teacher or someone else meant.

*constantly

Sigh.

Gus rhymes with pus, as in the gunky infected stuff. Or fuss. Or bus.

Wuss does not have an ‘uh’ sound in it. It has an ‘ sound (as in book, cook, took, not food).

There are regional variations, sure. But the two do actually have quite different sounds to them, officially.

Grrrr autocorrect fucked with it!!
Was meant to say wuss has an ‘oo’ sound in it...book, took, cook.

Fuck me, can’t believe I got sucked into posting on this again!!

Going to hide this thread now.

@Ninkanink

Grrrr autocorrect fucked with it!! Was meant to say wuss has an ‘oo’ sound in it...book, took, cook.

Are you from Stoke? Here book, took, cook have a short uh sound, b uh k, t uh k, w uh s, g uh s. Of your accent does oo where I'd do uh I can see why you'd think they don't rhyme with Gus

No, that sound is not called uh. It’s called oo.

Uh is the sound in ‘tonne’ or ‘bun’ or ‘fun’.

I am Danish, so don’t have any regional British/English/Scottish accent. However I have spoken English as my main language since I was young. I speak what is considered standard English - Oxford/received/Queen’s.

All my pronunciations of the words being discussed here comply with those of the pronunciation guides I have linked to previously on this thread.

(Hence my constant pointing toward regional variations, since I am aware that there is some difference in how things are pronounced. However standard English is still standard English.)

@Ninkanink

No, that sound is not called uh. It’s called oo.

Uh and op are different sounds. When you say book in the West Midlands it's an uh sound. Not an oo sound. So you might pronounce it differently but I don't need my phonetics correcting,

Why would a pronunciation guide differentiate between fuss and wuss?

@ancientgran because they don’t sound the same, as evidenced here with the recordings:

Wuss

dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/wuss?q=Wuss

Fuss

dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fuss?q=Fuss

It's the difference between ʊ vs ʌ but many widely spoken accents have no distinction between the two.

I'd say them to rhyme

Well I’ve never lived in the midlands so I couldn’t say what people speak like there, but phonics, again, are standardised:

Book pronounced with an ‘uh’ sound, for example, would sound like buck as in a deer.

However I’m not going to argue - I’ve no skin in the game, and really don’t care. I’m simply explaining since people keep asking. And I’m not lecturing anyone on how they should speak, or saying they’re wrong, either, if it’s come across like I am. I’m discussing it because it’s relevant to the general discussion about the name, that’s all. As far as I’m concerned it’s all part of the fascination of this fantastic language!

Book pronounced with an ‘uh’ sound, for example, would sound like buck as in a deer

And for large numbers of the population in England these two words are homonyms.

@TangerineGenie I always say on pronunciation threads that it’s a real shame that use of dictionary pronunciation guides has been all but lost, it makes for so much confusion when people are trying to convey how they say things and using words as examples. With all the regional variations it gets really difficult.

I haven’t used a dictionary in years and years except to look up a word to check it’s exact definition, and in that case I always already know how it’s pronounced. I remember being fascinated with words when I was young, maybe because I had had to switch languages three times by the time I was 8, and absolutely loved looking things up when I was reading encyclopedias (I used to love doing that when I visited my grandparents as they had a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica which I thought was the most exciting thing...I was a bit of a strange child looking back ) and being able to figure out what words sounded like even though I’d never heard them! I’d have to re-learn how to use it now I think.

@TangerineGenie that’s good to know...Although now I feel like a twat! Wasn’t meaning to be one at all, @SleepingStandingUp! I forget that obviously phonics will actually be quite different when applied to different accents...

Again, just to be clear, not at all saying that anyone doesn’t have a right to speak their own language however it’s commonly spoken in their region!

Its* ffs this autocorrect drives me mad!

It's a fairly consistent north south split in England. I actually can't really say the ʌ at all. Drove my German teacher mad that most of us couldn't say u and ü differently