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:Pronunciation Guide: =====================

Pronunciation keys are provided in the jargon listings for all entries that are neither dictionary words pronounced as in standard English nor obvious compounds thereof. Slashes bracket phonetic pronunciations, which are to be interpreted using the following conventions:

1. Syllables are hyphen-separated, except that an accent or back-accent follows each accented syllable (the back-accent marks a secondary accent in some words of four or more syllables).

2. Consonants are pronounced as in American English. The letter `g' is always hard (as in "got" rather than "giant"); `ch' is soft ("church" rather than "chemist"). The letter `j' is the sound that occurs twice in "judge". The letter `s' is always as in "pass", never a z sound. The digraph `kh' is the guttural of "loch" or "l'chaim".

3. Uppercase letters are pronounced as their English letter names; thus (for example) /H-L-L/ is equivalent to /aitch el el/. /Z/ may be pronounced /zee/ or /zed/ depending on your local dialect.

4. Vowels are represented as follows:

a

back, that

ar

far, mark

aw

flaw, caught

ay

bake, rain

e

less, men

ee

easy, ski

eir

their, software

i

trip, hit

i:

life, sky

o

father, palm

oh

flow, sew

oo

loot, through

or

more, door

ow

out, how

oy

boy, coin

uh

but, some

u

put, foot

y

yet, young

yoo

few, chew

[y]oo

/oo/ with optional fronting as in `news' (/nooz/ or /nyooz/)

A /*/ is used for the `schwa' sound of unstressed or occluded vowels (the one that is often written with an upside-down `e'). The schwa vowel is omitted in syllables containing vocalic r, l, m or n; that is, `kitten' and `color' would be rendered /kit'n/ and /kuhl'r/, not /kit'*n/ and /kuhl'*r/.

Entries with a pronunciation of `//' are written-only usages. (No, UNIX weenies, this does *not* mean `pronounce like previous pronunciation'!)