differing pronunciations in money and convey

[r***@yahoo.com]

Hello,

This my first post to this group.
I was asked a question by a friend of mine: Why is the -ey in money
pronounced differently than the -ey in convey? long e versus a long
a
sound.....


I told her I thought it based on the respective etymologies of the
words, but she is wondering if there is any kind of a rule as to when
one would use one over the other.
I don't personally think such a rule exists, but does anyone know the
answer definitively?


Thanks,


dave

[Einde O'Callaghan]

Post by r***@yahoo.com
Hello,
This my first post to this group.
I was asked a question by a friend of mine: Why is the -ey in money
pronounced differently than the -ey in convey? long e versus a long
a
sound.....
I told her I thought it based on the respective etymologies of the
words, but she is wondering if there is any kind of a rule as to when
one would use one over the other.
I don't personally think such a rule exists, but does anyone know the
answer definitively?

As you say, the pronunciation is based to a large extent on the
etymology - there is no rule for the pronunciation of letter
combinations in English. The "-ey" in "key" has another pronunciation
and when you include names like "Feynman" you have yet another
pronunciation of that combination.

Sometimes the pronunciation of a word may change over time under the
influence of other words with the same letter combination or of the
proniunciation in other dialects, varieties or (non-standard) accents.
an example of this is the pronunciation of the word "schedule" - when I
was young the usual pronunciation in Ireland and Britain of the "sch-"
combintion was the same as "sh-" - now this pronunciation seems to be
being replaced by the pronunciation "sk-", probably under the influence
of the American pronunciation.

Regards, Einde O'Callaghan