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Stratoscope

A more recent example of "how the heck do I pronounce this word" is Bazel, the build system.

I've always pronounced it like "hazel", but many of my colleagues rhyme it with "dazzle".

The Bazel website even has an FAQ entry about it, but they managed to completely confuse the issue:

> How do you pronounce “Bazel”?

> The same way as “basil” (the herb) in US English: “BAY-zel”. It rhymes with “hazel”. IPA: /ˈbeɪzˌəl/

https://bazel.build/faq.html

Little problem here... Basil, the herb, can be pronounced either like hazel or like dazzle. Or even rhymed with hassle!

So naturally I opened a PR attempting to clarify this. It led to an interesting discussion, and in the end I wrote a bad poem acknowledging both pronunciations:

https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel-website/pull/323

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Your poem does the subject justice. Just in case you have not seen it before, one who writes bad poetry is a poetaster, which the OED [0] defines as:

  A petty or paltry poet; a writer of poor or trashy verse; a rimester.

I should very much like to be known as a rimester. It sounds adventurous.

[0] Oxford English Dictionary, 1989. No link; it's a handy 20 volume set.

I appreciate that it sounds like a misspelling of potater.

potater or potahter?

Yes.

Is that pronounced "poet taster" or "poet aster"?

According to the OED, it's poe'taster where ' indicates the accent.

Most wholesome GH thread I have read in a while. I for one appreciate your most terrible poetry.

I've always pronounced it the same as Basel, the city in Switzerland.

Uh, the way the Swiss pronounce Basel, or the way the English do?

It's pronounced baal I believe.

In French but not in Swiss German.

Didn't know that, thanks!

>the way the Swiss pronounce Basel

You may have been making a veiled reference to the fact that the Swiss pronounce it three different ways themselves, but just in case you weren't:

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g188049-i752-k284241...

>The locals say without any doubt "Basel" with a long "a". So do the germans.

>So, in american it is something like "Baahsel"

>Some english folks pronounce it "Baahl", so do the french, who write it "Bâle".

>In italian, by the way, it is "Basilea".

> The locals say without any doubt "Basel" with a long "a".

I always find “long ‘a’” very unclear. Is it long like “ate” or long like “art”?

I swear, the early English grammarians did quite some damage calling the ej sound "long "a". I understand why they did that, but it really screws up any talk about comparing different languages: what pretty much everyone else calls "long "a" is the a:/ɑ: sound (or something very close to it) — which is actually long, compared to a/ɑ.

In the specific context of 'Basel', it's like "art", but I see your point.

The way the Swiss Germans pronounce "Basel", not the way the French and English pronounce "Basle".

Or just call it blaze :)

Co za bajzel

For the people wondering what is that comment doing here: in Polish it means "what a mess".

I know MS Azure is Aah-zhur, but I hear it called uh-Zhur more often than not.

Don’t even get me started on the fourteen incorrect ways to say Omicron…

> Aah-zhur

So do you pronounce the "Aah" like the "o" in "otter", or like the "a" in "apple"?

Isn't it fun trying to describe pronunciation with contrived spelling? :-)

Emphasis on the first syllable. Short A as in apple. [0]

[0] https://youtu.be/AmP11EgEM4g

Indeed. Much easier to use IPA here, but the likelihood people can write/read it is pretty low. I'm out of practice, but should be /æʒər/. Could also copy-paste that into here: http://ipa-reader.xyz/

My main hobby is choral singing. Learning IPA is insanely helpful; at a high level the pronunciation of words really really matters and making sure the choir place the vowels (and turn the dipthongs) in the same way is a big deal (think of Anthea Turner singing 'fire' in a pop song compared to a baroque English 'fire').

I've noticed consistently that more British people are familiar with IPA, even passingly or badly, than Americans. I've never quite known why -- unless you do a language degree here you're never taught it formally, but it's usually in the dictionaries (e.g. the Oxford English dictionary) by every word, often with multiple forms for different geographic regions. I've never actually seen a real physical en-us dictionary -- does Marriam Webster (sic) do the same?

It's my impression that there's a larger variety of accents in the UK, maybe that's why British people are more familiar with IPA? We do have IPA in our dictionaries, though.

> you're never taught it formally, but it's usually in the dictionaries

Amusingly, I don't ever remember a proper IPA pronuncation table in almost anything I used to learn English.

> does Marriam Webster (sic) do the same?

Looks like it [0]

[0] https://shop.merriam-webster.com/collections/dictionaries/pr...

Here in London, UK it's mostly pronounced Ah-zuuure. With the 'zuure' part being almost twice as long as how americans say it.

I think I've ipa'd this right: http://ipa-reader.xyz/?text=%2F%C3%A6%CA%92%C9%9C%C9%9Cr%2F

(It sounds correct anyway)

The Azure difference at my company very closely aligned with office location relative to the Atlantic Ocean.

Aah-zhur to the west, uh-Zhur to the east.

Out of curiosity, how do you know that it's Aah-zhur? Does Microsoft offer any guidance on the topic?

(Honest question, I'm confused myself. An authoritative source would be awesome.)

Watch some Microsoft Azure talks, they pronounce it ah-zur not uh-zur or ay-zur

Not BUH-zel, as some of us affectionately call it?

Now we should start spelling it "Buzzle"!

But then it wouldn't be an anagram for "Blaze" any more. (That's Google's internal build system that Bazel is derived from.)

It also doesn't help that in the recommend setup that running bazel actually runs bazelisk which would give it the dazzle pronunciation.

Funny you mention that. My company just switched to Bazelisk; it was the first time I'd heard of it. Or I should say, read about it, because I've never heard it pronounced out loud.

Even though I say BAY-zuhl, my inner mind reads Bazelisk as BAZZ-uh-lisk. No doubt because I knew the reference to Roko's Basilisk, which I'd always pronounced BASS-ihl-isk. Again in my inner mind, because I don't think I've ever heard that word pronounced either.

So I might say "We run BAY-zuhl using BAZZ-uh-lisk." And my mind doesn't put a red flag on the inconsistency, it seems perfectly natural.

Just like I eat sea bass and listen to bass guitar!

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