I think it wasn’t the point of OP that “meter” better matches the French pronunciation, but it does better match the (American and British) English pronouciation than “metre” does.
ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org 3 months ago
“Meter” isn’t a French word and “metre” isn’t an American English word. Other than that, spot on.
Successful_Try543@feddit.org 3 months ago
seven_phone@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Töo muçh “spec’ial” char{act}ér.
Blyfh@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Other languages exist. Tolerate their writing.
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 3 months ago
I think seven was answering the question
MissJinx@lemmy.world 3 months ago
MẹŤŘƏ
oce@jlai.lu 3 months ago
I am French. Let me expend the title to make it easier to understand.
In American English, words of French origin like “meter” (American English) inverted the last letters of “metre” (British English from French “mètre”) to better match the English pronunciation. Why isn’t it also the case for other similar situations like “possible”?
Fondots@lemmy.world 3 months ago
If we inverted the last letters of “possible” to “possibel,” that wouldn’t really match how we pronounce it
I’d probably try to read it as something like “possi-bell”
But our actual pronunciation is more along the lines of “possi-bull” not exactly, and I feel like different dialects might maybe lean more towards the last syllable being more like bill, ball, or boll, but I can’t really imagine any dialect where the pronunciation would match a “bel” spelling.
It’s sort of an unintentional half vowel sound that just happens after making the “b” noise, and not really something we’re intentionally trying to put into the word.
Linguists probably have some specific terminology for it, but I’m no linguist.
ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org 3 months ago
Sorry, now I get what you’re asking. But your question was really strangely worded 🙂