• aeronmelon@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      2 months ago

      X, spoken as a letter = ecks

      Hard phonetic sound = zz, same as the letter Z (almost always at the beginning of a word. Xylophone)

      Soft phonetic sound = ksk (never at the beginning of a word. Box, oxen)

      (disclaimer: American English, ymmv.)

      • oyfrog@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        2 months ago

        By this definition, Xolo wouldn’t fit because the x in Xolo is somewhere between sh- and ch-. It’s a Nahuatl word and many (if not all) Xs are sh-/ch-.

        Sorry for being pedantic.

        • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          2 months ago

          Don’t be sorry, you’re not pedantic enough.

          The Nahuatl word Xoloitzcuintle is something the vast majority of English-speaking Americans can’t read, let alone spell or pronounce correctly. So the more digestible word Xolo was adopted to identify Mexican hairless dogs (hard X, hard O, L, hard O).

          • FlihpFlorp@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            2 months ago

            As an English speaking American I can confirm. I started pronouncing it in my head then kinda gave up cus I haven’t had enough coffee yet

    • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      No, i think i get it but difficult to explain.

      Say X, X, X in a row

      Then say

      Xylo , Xen, Xono

      The Raw letter has different phonet-x to how it’s often applied.

      When were talking about teaching kids the alphabet we need to train both individual and applied letters

      I do realize that this might be very cultural and language dependent but i am pretty sure we’re talking plain english.

      • Mirodir@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        2 months ago

        When were talking about teaching kids the alphabet we need to train both individual and applied letters

        This is only slightly related but I once met a young (USAmerican) adult who thought the stripy horse animal’s name was pronounced zed-bra in British English and it was really hard to convince her otherwise. In her mind zebra was strongly connected to Z-bra, so of course if someone was to pronounce the letter “zed” it would turn into “zed-bra” and not just into “zeh-bra”.