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

My name is Mandy, and this is our 96th episode.

Noah Webster, of the famed Miriam Webster's Dictionary, published his American Dictionary of the English Language way back in 1828.

It was the first dictionary of word usage specifically for the United States.

Webster's second claim to fame was his bold desire to simplify spelling and

make it more phonetic. In other words, he wanted spelling and pronunciation to match more closely.

As born in the United States, Webster did simplify things somewhat.

For non-native English speakers, however, it really only made learning English spelling

more complex.

Yes, you can blame Noah Webster for the fact that Americans have different spellings from

the rest of the world.

Many of Webster's more audacious spellings never made it into the mainstream.

One word that kept its old English roots is the word women, the plural of woman.

Webster adamantly suggested changing the W-O-M-E-N spelling to a more phonetic W-I-M-M-E-N.

As a teacher of English to non-Native speakers, I find myself sometimes wishing the WI-M-M-E-N spelling had stuck.

Women.

So clearly pronounced, with a short-eye sound as the first vowel.

Women.

I don't know of any spelling Webster wished for the singular of women, though.

The other-you sound uh, of the word woman, has no simple phonetic pattern in English. That uh sound is the same vowel sound as the words

put, P-U-T, and good, G-O-O-O-D.

I'm not sure people really would guess that sound, however, even if the word woman were spelled W-U-M-A-N or W-O-O-M-A-N.

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