either and neither

I'm always confused about the correct pronounciation. Is it "eeder" or "aider"? "needer" or "neider"? Can anyone explain this to me?... Thank you.

They are prounced with the same "th" sound as found in the world "the".

That should say -

'They are pronounced with the same "the" sound as found in the world "the". '


That's what happens you spend the late afternooon down the Ye Olde Man and Scythe pub to drink a few pints of beer to cool down.

It's a nice pub. The third oldest in England. A Royalist, who led the Bolton Massacre during the English Civil War, spent three hours in there in 1651 just before he was executed right outside it.

Yes. you are quite correct indeed. I think vivi is Dutch. That is why he wants to say "needer". It's wrong, though. It should be "neither".

So, it's nAIder and AIder?...

both Webster and Cambridge consider both pronunciations as equal.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/neither
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=53341&dict=CALD

The American Heritage Dictionary says the same.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/21/E0062100.html
http://www.bartleby.com/61/41/N0054100.html

I say /i:D@/ & /ni:D@/ (i.e. "eedha" & "needha").

I myself say ["i:DR=] and ["ni:DR=] for "either" and "neither" respectively. Honestly, to myself ["a:IDR=] and ["na:IDR=] (the use of [R=] simply being due to the phonology of my dialect, and is likely to be [@`] instead in most other NAE dialects) sound more like affectations than anything else.

It's a matter of personal choice whether you use the long E sound or the long I sound. But you would never use a D for the TH.

The [D] in X-Sampa is written "th" in English, while [d] is written "d".

Neither viri nor I were using X-SAMPA, though.

viri wrote: "So, it's nAIder and AIder?... " which is partly in X-Sampa.

Not necessarily. "AI" is how the English "long I" would be spelled in many other languages -- like Spanish, for example. Which is probably why X-SAMPA uses it as well.

So? I'm trying to help by clearing up the potential for confusion over phonetic symbols mixed in with written English.

I'm sorry if I confused you, but my native language is portuguese and I instinctively used "AI" to represent an open A, as in the spanish sentence "AI caramba!" or the word "TAIpei" (capital of TAIwan).
I have to think more carefully in the cultural/phonetic assumptions I make.