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Esther
Pronunciation: Do"dear" and "deer" have the same pronunciation?
Do"dear" and "deer" have the same pronunciation?
Jul 2, 2014 4:31 PM
Answers · 3
1
Yes. They are homophones. I live in the northeastern U.S. To my ear, they are pronounced EXACTLY the same, and I just double-checked and a dictionary presents them using the same phonetic symbols.
It would not surprise me to learn that the spelling of "dear" might preserve a long-dead pronunciation. This is definitely true of the word "please," which today is universally pronounced "pleez," but a century ago was pronounced as two syllables, plee-uhz, by careful speakers. When I was a kid, telephone operators pronounced it that way.
In a nineteenth century schoolbook, McGuffey's New Fourth Eclectic Reader, there is a somewhat humorous piece purporting to show "Consequences of Bad Spelling." A schoolchild writes to her aunt that she has been given "the nicest little deer in the world; I long to buy a fine cage for it." Her aunt replies that a deer would be much happier in her uncle's park than in a cage. It turns out that the girl had been given a canary, which she thinks is a little DEAR, but misspells the word.
July 2, 2014
Yes. Exactly the same.
"My mum bought 4 legs of venison for £100... is that 2 dear?"
July 2, 2014
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Esther
Language Skills
English, Spanish
Learning Language
English
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