If there’s one thing I know about women, it’s that it’s not pronounced the same as woman. Women rhymes with “dimmin’”, as in “dimmin’ the lights”. Woman rhymes with – well, I don’t know what. But everyone seems to get that part right.
I was inspired to this topic after hearing a caller on a radio talk-show last night, who referred to “those woman” a few times. I can’t think where I’ve typically heard this before. It’s not common, but I hear it a few times a year. If I remember correctly, I heard Kevin Nealon make this mistake multiple times when he did some stand-up for the live audience of Saturday Night Live, the one time I attended.
Why is it that some segment of the American population does not make this distinction in pronunciation? And what segment is that exactly? When I first got upset by this topic in college, I wondered if it was some feminist thing, since I had heard of spelling women ‘womyn’ or other wackiness to try to get rid of that evil “man” root word. But I never really found any evidence to support that theory.
I call as a witness m-w.com, which seems to have only one pronunciation clip for ‘women’. Furthermore, I have noticed this phenomenon very infrequently on Television, that most definitive source of proper behavior.
Can anyone out there shed light on this?
If I come to any other definitive knowledge about women, I’ll let you know.
I believe you can use the phrase “Whoa, man” in an attempt to similate the pronouciation of the word “woman”. It was demonstrated as such in the movie “So I Married An Ax Murderer” starring your friend Mike Myers. He was reciting a poem that began something like: “Woman. Whoa, man. Whoooooah Man!”. Thought I’d mention it, for what it is worth!
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