Hi again and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.

My name is Mandy, and this is our 150th episode.

This episode is a little complex in topic, so I'd recommend following along with the transcripts

if you're not an advanced English learner or a native speaker. You can find the transcripts at

www.prenuncian.com slash podcast. Just click the link to episode 150. I was recently asked why the lesson on

pronunciation.com and the new pronunciation pages book say that the long A sound is commonly spelled E-I-G-H, as in the word

8, but not E-Y, as in the word they. This is a good question, and one worth explaining.

I included the E-I-G-H spelling, but not the E-Y spelling

because of the predictability of the phonetics involved.

Phenetics is the term used when spellings and pronunciations match or correspond in a language. English is considered a phonetic language overall,

though there are many exceptions to the phonetic patterns. Deciding what is a pattern and what is an

exception can seem arbitrary at times, and in some ways it is.

I have seen texts that do include the EY spelling for the long A sound, but don't include

the E-I-G-H spelling. As I said a bit ago, I base the patterns on predictability.

First, I look at how many total words use a specific spelling.

For the E-I-G-H spelling, there are approximately 200 different words.

That is a surprisingly high number, but it includes all closed compound nouns and derivations

of a word.

For instance, for just the main word neighbor, there are 10 variations of that word, including

the words neighbored, neighborhood, neighborhoods, neighboring, neighborless,

neighborliness, neighborliness, neighborliness, neighborliness, neighborly, and neighbors.

Then, to choose which spellings are most predictable, I see how many variations of pronunciation

...