LEND ME YOUR EAR: LADIES, IT'S THE MENU SIT BY!

One of my most devoted fans was baffled by my spelling of the pronunciation of the word "plagiarism" as presented in a recent column. This leads me to believe a key to the method used is in order.

Although I spelled the word correctly in the column, the pronunciation came out PLAY-jer-ism. I capitalized PLAY to show what syllable is accented, and added the Y for the long-A sound. Time was when the second syllable, which I spelled jer, was divided into two ji-a and my Webster's New Collegiate, 1953, permitted both. However, The American Heritage, Second College Edition, 1986, gives only the one: jer. Never mind that ism is actually two syllables: iz-em. I feel this is understood. But if you haven't bought a dictionary recently, you are sure to be surprised by changes wrought over the years. (You may also be surprised to learn "wrought" is a past tense and past participle of "work.")

Usually, we think of vowel sounds as long or short, but there are gradations which we spell out for clarity, and illustrate by using well-known words. The short a is the one we hear in cat, sat, bat; long is simplified in way, may, stay. This explains why the first syllable of "plagiarism" comes out PLAY capitalized because that's the syllable of stress.

As for the variations, we have AH as in father, AIR as in fair, AW as in talk, and UH as in ago. Most dictionaries use these phonetic spellings in their pronunciation guides, as did Charles Elster in IS THERE A COW IN MOSCOW? (Reviewed in Lend Me Your Ear, Oct. 17, 1990.)

Everyone knows our vowels include a, e, i, o, u, and y when pronounced as a short i, as in happy. To continue in the order given, e comes next. The short sound is heard in bet, set, yet; long as in beet, sheet, meet. We spell the long sound EE, whether doubled in the word or not. Examples are be, me, key. For the slurred sound, as in cheer, queer, veneer, we write EER: ve-NEER.

Next comes i, the short sound heard in tin, win, sin; long as in kind, mind, dine. To indicate the short sound, we write it i; long, EYE, as in ivy: EYE-vi. The first syllable in irritate is spelled EER, and both the first and third syllables are stressed, so we write the pronunciation EER-i-TAYT.

Now for o. The short sound, heard in hot, shot, stop, is spelled AH; the long comes out OH, as in know, blow, provide. To complicate matters, we have OO as in school, also in poor (please, not pore, which is pronounced pohr.) We use OW to show the pronunciation in now, coward, and pow-wow; OY designates the o sound in toy, boy, ahoy.

We now proceed to the long and short of u. The short sound is heard in cut, shut, jut, and is spelled UH; long, spelled and pronounced OO, is observed in lute, flute, salute. Then there's the sound we hear in full, indicated by UU, and the same in pull, bull (though not in dull). UR is our key in turn, burn, urn. YOO is the sound heard in menu, pronounced MEN-yoo. Dictionaries permit MAYN-yoo as well, but the alternate spoils a comment of a long-gone favorite teacher of mine, Miss Naomi Pott. "It isn't the menu that matters, it's the men you sit by," Miss Pott averred at an all-female dinner one night. No one was comforted: no men to sit by!

Forgive the detour; even the most serious of teachers is tempted to be cute on holidays, and I'm writing this on New Year's Day. The u in cute, by the way, is pronounced and phonetically spelled EW, rhyming with mute, refute, dispute: dis-pewt.

Finally, we come to y, a vowel when the sound is short, as in baby, physics, lady. In words beginning with y, such as you, yonder, young, the y is a consonant, though the city Ypsilanti, in Michigan, begins and ends with the short i sound. In the word beyond, the y may be silent or pronounced as a consonant.

Always, when discussing pronunciation, I'm reminded of the traveler who became engaged in a conversation with a stranger about a recent trip to Hawaii. The stranger interrupted him to inquire about the pronunciation of the main island. "Is it Ha-WAH-ee, or Ha-VAH-ee?" he asked.

"It's Ha-VAH-ee," the traveler assured him.

"I appreciate your clearing that up," said the stranger. "Thank you very much."

"You're VEL-come!" beamed the traveler, pleased to have been such a help.