Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Until I started listening to audiobooks I was unaware that British and American English pronounce, as well as spell, so many words differently. A lot of words are pronounced completely differently even if they're spelt the same. One example is the word "buoy" (as in a floating marker in a harbour or at sea). In the UK, the word is pronounced the same as the word "boy", but in one book by an American narrator, he pronounced it "boo-ee". I don't know if that's the standard American pronunciation, or if he just didn't know how to say the word? Another one which always strikes me as strange is that American narrators say the word "shone" the same as the word "shown", whereas in British English, "shone" has a short "o".
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Both pronunciations of buoy are valid in American english, but I would tend to use "boo-ee" when speaking in order to reduce confusion.