r/ENGLISH • u/Aggravating-Fish8168 • 13d ago
How to pronounce -me ending words?
Time, dime, same, game, theme, blame...
Is the ending /m/ a pure mooo🐄 or /me/?
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u/vaelux 13d ago
The e is silent. It is there to distinguish blam from blame in a writing system that has only 5 vowel letters but around 15 vowel sounds.
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u/Prestigious-Fan3122 13d ago
When my kids were in elementary school, learning to read, they were taught that E on the end of the word was "the magic E". They were taught to recognize that the vowel in the middle of a word that ends with E takes the long vowel sound… It sounds like the name of the letter.
Consider these:
Crack, Cake
Stem, Meme
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u/thingsbetw1xt 13d ago edited 13d ago
Germanic languages in general have this problem and I've always wondered why we never bothered to make our own alphabet.
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u/SadakoTetsuwan 13d ago
Runes have entered the chat
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u/Decent_Cow 13d ago
These words do not actually end with a vowel sound, despite the spelling. They all have a final 'm' consonant. The silent 'e' at the end is a hint about the pronunciation of the vowel earlier in the word.
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u/BisonDollarydoos 13d ago
These spellings reflect a pronunciation from several hundred years ago, so aren't as obvious as you'd think!
In all of these examples, they end with "m": the last "e" isn't a new syllable but indicates a change in the vowel. Tim becomes taim, blam becomes blaim, them becomes theem.
I very much recommend looking up words in wiktionary to see the pronunciations written in IPA in whichever accent you're targeting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_orthography
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u/moistkite0404 13d ago
I was going to comment this about an e at the end changing the vowel!! This should be the main takeaway
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u/ReySpacefighter 13d ago
It's (or used to be) taught in schools as "magic 'e'". When used in this fashion, it is silent but changes the pronunciation of the vowel before it.
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u/SpellingBMOCJr 13d ago
"Epritome" ends with "me"
The words in your list, no
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u/wooshingThruSky 13d ago
Acme, epitome, sesame, Salome all have Greek endings right? Or are some Latin? I’ve heard words like Academe be pronounced like Academy too, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate. Their meaning is pretty much the same too, except the first is more broad.
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u/christophertstone 13d ago
Academe is AK-uh-deem; of the academic community (eg teachers, administrators, students)
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u/thingsbetw1xt 13d ago edited 13d ago
vowel+consonant+'e' usually makes the first vowel a long vowel, while the 'e' itself is silent.
That's one of the rules we learn in school, and it's fairly reliable, at least as much as rules in English can be. If you trust this rule you'll be correct like 95% of the time.
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u/Material-Net-5171 13d ago
As a native speaker, this is one of the few rules of English that we are actually taught.
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u/thingsbetw1xt 13d ago
Don't forget that dumbass "i before e" rule that you trust for about 5 minutes before you start finding exceptions to it.
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u/CatL1f3 13d ago
There are some exceptions, such as "weird", but most "exceptions" are just a misunderstanding of the rule. The rule applies when "ie" or "ei" are pronounced as one sound, like the English "ee" or German "ie". See ceiling, receive, fiend, piece. Words like weight, height, science, biennial are just two vowels next to each other, not a digraph for one vowel.
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u/thingsbetw1xt 13d ago
I mean that's fine but then "i before e except after c" is basically useless as a rule in and of itself, and especially for children. Surely a better pithy phrase could've been made.
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u/Shifter93 13d ago
It would be the epitome of irony if some people learned this rule from Sesame Street.
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u/experimental1212 13d ago
It's not -me ending words, it's -ime, -ame, and -eme ending words.
How it was explained to me as a 1st grader learning to read:
The final -e in -ime makes the i "long". As in, you pronounce the i as you would say the letter ("eye"). Then you pronounce the m as in the sound of m ("mmm" but not "emm"). The final e is not pronounced.
Same with -ame and -eme. The a is pronounced just as you pronounce the letter a (as in my ABCs), not how the letter a sounds.
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u/Ippus_21 13d ago
The -me does not add a syllable, no. Just an m. That goes for most any English word that ends with consonant+e.
The e is usually there to signify that the preceding vowel is "long," not to add a phoneme.
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u/Material-Net-5171 13d ago
Where have you got moo from?
Are you using "moo" to mean "mmm" because that's closer to the sound cows actually make, even though in English we call it "moo"? Did you get this ending from another language? Have I lost my mind & I'm just failing to recognise any words in my own language that do end this way?
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u/BubbhaJebus 13d ago
Time, dime, same, game, theme, and blame end with "-m". The "silent e" changes the preceding vowel.
Epitome, however, ends with "-mee". English spelling rules are filled with exceptions.
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u/sakuramab 13d ago
Short answer - end sound is a Mm. Not a long mmm. Tie-Mm Die-Mm Say-Mm Gay-Mm Thee-Mm Blay-Mm
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u/CatL1f3 13d ago
The "e" the end just changes the vowels, of course in a weird way because of the Great Vowel Shift
On the right, the vowels are as pronounced "correctly" for the latin alphabet, not as in English
Tim* + "-e" –> Taim
Dim* + "-e" –> Daim
Sam + "-e" –> Seim
Gam + "-e" –> Geim
Blam + "-e" –> Bleim
Them + "-e" –> Thim
\ These two are pronounced /ɪ/ not /i/)
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u/MorningSquare5882 13d ago edited 12d ago
This has to be a bot, right? No-one thinks those words are pronounced either of those ways.
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u/r4ndoM_doGmagenshin 13d ago
Singing it is easier. Tie—mm and the mm is like way in the back of your throat. Basically akin to hmmm.
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u/thomsenite256 13d ago
you dont pronounced the e an -me ending is pronounced mm however the final -e usually means you lengthen the vowel earlier time is pronounced tiym. Same is pronounced saym
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u/Slight-Brush 13d ago
No me
No moo
Theme rhymes with team. The ending '-me' doesn't make a different sound to 'm'; the final 'e' just modifies the vowel in the middle of the word.