Pronounce Nikon

[dmr]

since the apostrophe never indicates 'plural'

One of my pet peeves in written American English. Far too many people use the apostrophe for simple plurality!

 

[Sirius Glass]

One of my pet peeves in written American English. Far too many people use the apostrophe for simple plurality!

Me too. By the way, if I were to ever get a cat, I would name it Peeve so that I could have a pet peeve.

 

[mynewcolour]

How do you pronounce Nikon.?
From a quick search i get the idea that it is a Three Syllable word.
Something like:
knee
co (as in cooperate)
in
Knee-Co-In

What i typically hear in my country (usa) is
Ny (sky)
Kon (turn it on)

Other country's seem to more often say it like
Knee
Kon

Anybody know the Correct/Japanese pronunciation.?
Thank You

" P O T A T O "

 

[cooltouch]

Me too. By the way, if I were to ever get a cat, I would name it Peeve so that I could have a pet peeve.

Hey, we have a cute little calico female that we'd like to find a home for. She's quiet and affectionate, and we've never named her, so Peeve woulld be available.

Just sayin'.

 

[emacs]

Apostrophe rules can get complicated when we refer to possession by plurals or possession by entities with names that end in "s". Example: "These are our drivers' cars." Note the position of the apostrophe in the plural case. It's hanging out there by itself. But we also have instances like "This is Elias' car." This was the accepted way of indicating possessives with names ending in "s" for many years, but more recently, it's become acceptable to double up the "s" as in "This is Elias's car." The reason why the latter usage has won out is because it's spelled the way we typically pronounce a sentence like this. We say /eliases/ [ə'laiəsəs], not /elias/. So we're pronouncing that second "s". But it didn't always used to be this way. I can recall when I was in grade school that the teachers were quite strict about only the single "s" being pronounced in possessive instances with names that end in "s". Even back then, the second "s" was pronounced in common vernacular, so I always regarded it as a stupid rule. And I guess enough others did too, such that the language prescriptionists (grammarians, who do make the rules and who do judge) finally relented and gave way.

The lack of standardization with stuff like this caused me a lot of grief in school. In elementary school, I was taught that the possessive form of a word ending in "s" always had an apostrophe at the end without an additional "s" (eg. Chris', families', mass'). Then middle school came around and suddenly that was incorrect and would negatively affect your grade, because if the second "s" is pronounced when speaking, it should be written (eg. Chris's, families', mass's). Once I got to high school, I was taught that if the word was plural, one should use only an apostrophe. If the word was singular, use an apostrophe and s (eg. Chris's, families', mass's). Now that I'm in college, I try to follow the AP style guide, which of course makes things extra complicated by including rules for things like words ending in "s" where the "s" is silent, or instances where the possessive word is followed by a word beginning with "s."

Apostrophes are also often used, albeit incorrectly, to clarify because it is felt to be needed. E.g., "one's and two's and three's" when it is perfectly acceptable and correct to write "ones and twos and threes". Another example, a bit closer to home. "I own two 50mm f/1.2s" is often written as "I have two 50mm f/1.2's". People feel the need to use an apostrophe after a numeral if it is a plural term, when this is clearly wrong grammatically, since the apostrophe never indicates 'plural'.

Unnecessarily adding apostrophes to numbers frustrates me, too. I get annoyed whenever I see decades written with an apostrophe before the "s" - eg. 1990's or 90's rather than 1990s or '90s.

 

[Logan Becker]

I took a trip to New Zealand and hooked up with a few guys who said it Ni- (nickel) kon (contact)

 

[CMoore]

I took a trip to New Zealand and hooked up with a few guys who said it Ni- (nickel) kon (contact)

I hear that Quite A Bit on Youtube, and it always seems to be from a Non-USA person. It SEEMS To Be one of the more common, world-wide pronunciations.?

 

[Alan Gales]

Me too. By the way, if I were to ever get a cat, I would name it Peeve so that I could have a pet peeve.

I heard about a fellow who had a dog named Sex. One day it got out and the guy went looking for it yelling Sex real loud. A neighbor called the police. When a cop pulled up in his patrol car and asked the dog owner what he was doing, the dude replied that he was looking for Sex. Can you believe he got arrested just for trying to find his lost dog?

 

[cooltouch]

Serves the guy right. What on Earth was he thinking? Reminds me of a woman I knew who named her dog "Nonsense." When he did something she didn't like, she would call out, "Stop that Nonsense!" Phwew.

Regarding the "Ni- (nickel) kon (contact)" pronunciation, I hear this coming mostly from British Commonwealth countries -- except perhaps Canada, and that is no doubt because of US influence.