Word Spy's phonetics - and grammar

Posted by Anders on November 01, 2003

We're licensed to be pedantic on this board, I think, so here goes. Someone posted the link to Word Spy yesterday. I immediately was impressed by the site and joined the emailing list. Just now, however, I've come to take a closer look at the phonetics of the site. I became suspicious when I saw 'furniture' rendered 'fur.nuh.chur'. I thought: hey, where's the /I/? Then I checked Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, which gives the /I/ for both British and American, cf. link below. But it gets worse: 'askable parent' is rendered 'ASK.uh.bul pair.unt'. Hilarious, right? But wait, there is more. An 'askable parent is defined as: 'A parent who is willing to answer their child's questions and who encourages their child to ask questions . . .' 'A parent . . . their child'! I know it's common; still, it's horrible. How can one trust such a site? (Seriously, I'm asking.)

Anders