Question is it pronounced Wed nes day or Wendsday?
Answer, does it really matter now?
I guess it does matter to word perfectionists and “English” professors, but to the average American, I doubt it because it’s a dialectic and idiolectic thingy.
Dialect and Idiolect – two pretty cool words, but what do they have to do with how to pronounce Wednesday.
Glad you asked!
I often see posts on Facebook telling people to vote to make English the official language of the USA and I wonder. I wonder why we would want to make a foreign language our official one?
We, in the United States of America and it’s territories speak American English, not the Queen’s English of England. We gave that up long ago.
Last year, while helping a student with his dissertation on the topic of English as a Second Language (ESL), I did a little research of my own. I discover that there are over 1500 known dialects of English in the world ranging from the “Queen’s English” in the halls of Buckingham Palace to the Zulu English spoken in the Natal of Africa. In continental America alone, there are 350+ dialects from the Yankee northeast states to the Hispanic influenced Southwest and from the Scandinavian influenced North Central to the Creole in the south, America is an amalgam of languages and cultures.
Want to add some fun to that?
How many Idiolects do you think there are in continental America?
Well, as of 2017, there are an estimated 325.72+ million people in America. That figure includes all 50 states and the American territories.
Are you ready for this? Fact: America has 325.72+ oral idiolects. Each and every one of us speaks in a distinctive manner; the way we pronounce or slur our words, our choice of words and even swearing.
Never before have our dialect and idiolects been more important than today in our electronic age where voice recognition is becoming vital to our security.
My conclusion is, let’s make American English our official language!