I pronounce "buoy" the same as "boy", but having seen an old (60s I think) TV show called Sea Hunt recently on cable, I heard one of the characters call it something like "boo-ee", as though it had two syllables. It made me laugh at the time, when I finally worked out what they meant, but later I started wondering how someone who said "boo-ee" would pronounce "buoyant".
Buoy
I believe they pronounce it the same as you & I (i.e. as "boyant" i.e. /boI.@nt/). I think it's more of a (North) American vs. Commonwealth thing rather than an older vs. younger one.
I would say boo-ee for the bobbing object in the water, but boy-ant for the quality that allows it to do that.
Same as Uriel on both counts. But I did call it a "boy" until the age of eight when someone told me it was "boo-ee"...
I'm the same as Uriel and Tiffany. Actually, the first time I heard of the pronunciation 'boy' (on here I think), I laughed. I've never heard it said that way.
I myself pronounce "buoy" and "buoyant" as ["bui] and ["boII_"~?] respectively myself.
Unless you want to say boy-eh, the most logical pronounciation with be "boy" as the word comes from Dutch "boeye".
Best not start with "logical" pronunciations ... there's nothing logical about pronunciation and that's half the beauty of it. Tiffany, you aught to have told those scoundrels to shove off: "boy"'s fine but it is food for thought. Until you were eight you said /bOI/ but then someone told you otherwise so what is it in your true idiolect? Perhaps there can be no such thing.
I was an avid reader when I was young (and even now). Hence, at a young age, I knew a lot of words that I did not really know the pronunciation of. I'm not sure why, I must have read it somewhere, but I knew "buoyant" was "boy-ant", so then decided that "buoy" was "boy". It is logical as the above poster said. However, English spelling and pronunciation is not logical in reality so when corrected, I took the new pronunciation at face value.
My idiolect? I don't know! There are a lot of words that went like "buoyant" and "buoy" - pronunciation totally off till someone corrected me! I mean how often do you hear words like "beguiling" from an eight-year-old's mouth? But I was always eager to use whatever new vocabulary I had - regardless of correct pronunciation. My parents have some hilarious stories of my "notions" around that time.
My idiolect? I don't know! There are a lot of words that went like "buoyant" and "buoy" - pronunciation totally off till someone corrected me! I mean how often do you hear words like "beguiling" from an eight-year-old's mouth? But I was always eager to use whatever new vocabulary I had - regardless of correct pronunciation. My parents have some hilarious stories of my "notions" around that time.
>>Unless you want to say boy-eh, the most logical pronounciation with be "boy" as the word comes from Dutch "boeye".<<
That makes no sense whatsoever, as if my understanding of Dutch pronunciation is right, one would pronounce "boeye" as something like ["buY@], which is nothing like, say, GAE ["bOI] (my dialect having ["boI]), and is far closer to GAE ["bui]. Pronouncing "buoy" like "boy" (that is, as something like ["bOI]) would make sense if the Dutch word were more along the lines of, say, "booi" or "booye", if my understanding of Dutch orthography is correct.
That makes no sense whatsoever, as if my understanding of Dutch pronunciation is right, one would pronounce "boeye" as something like ["buY@], which is nothing like, say, GAE ["bOI] (my dialect having ["boI]), and is far closer to GAE ["bui]. Pronouncing "buoy" like "boy" (that is, as something like ["bOI]) would make sense if the Dutch word were more along the lines of, say, "booi" or "booye", if my understanding of Dutch orthography is correct.
<<Tiffany, you aught to have told those scoundrels to shove off: "boy"'s fine but it is food for thought.>>
It's ambiguous, whereas "boo-ee" is not. It's best not to cause confusion.
It's ambiguous, whereas "boo-ee" is not. It's best not to cause confusion.