#English Language and Usage - Stack Exchange Feed for question 'Pronunciation of "spring"' Stack Exchange log in | blog | meta | about | faq ____________________________ English Language and Usage * Questions * Tags * Users * Badges * Unanswered * Ask Question Pronunciation of “spring” up vote 3 down vote favorite share [g+] share [fb] share [tw] I found this text on the internet: We must polish the Polish furniture. He could lead if he would get the lead out. The farm was used to produce produce. ... There was a bow tied in the ropes on the bow of the ship. You should spring that on us next spring! http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/hlanguage2.html Could you clarify the difference in pronunciation of the word spring in the last line? pronunciation link|improve this question edited Feb 12 '11 at 7:16 kiamlaluno 24.3k31978 asked Feb 12 '11 at 4:12 Yarik 533 feedback 3 Answers active oldest votes up vote 4 down vote accepted There's no difference between how the two springs are pronounced. The meanings are different, though: the first spring means "surprise (us) with"; the second is the season. link|improve this answer answered Feb 12 '11 at 4:19 fortunate1 6327 so this line is an exception here? because the rest of the lines provide examples for words which are pronounced differently depending on the part of speech, that was my understanding – Yarik Feb 12 '11 at 4:23 Yes, it's an exception; I looked at the link and all the rest of the examples show words with different meanings and pronunciations but identical spelling [there's a formal term for that which escapes me at the moment.] It's a good exercise, and I'm not sure why the last line was included. – fortunate1 Feb 12 '11 at 4:30 feedback up vote 3 down vote First, there is no difference in pronunciation of the two instances of spring in the last sentence of your example. True, it is the exception to the pattern in the preceding lines. And the meaning is different in each usage of spring. Two words with the same spelling and same pronunciation, with different meanings, such as spring in your example, are Homonyms, see chart below. All the other examples had the same spelling, different pronunciation and different meanings. They are Heteronyms. This is probably a bit of overkill, but I like this kind of thing, and was excited to find this cool Venn diagram just now, so posted what is mostly a repeat of fortunate1's fine answer. See Venn diagram from Wikipedia of terms for words with similar pronunciation, meaning and spelling, or any combination http://i.stack.imgur.com/sMlIE.png I couldn't insert the image because I am new on the English Stackexchange site, sorry! link|improve this answer answered Feb 12 '11 at 5:41 Feral Oink 1,464117 feedback up vote 0 down vote The two words are not pronounced differently; they have a different meaning as spring (something) on means present or propose something suddenly or unexpectedly to someone, while spring (as noun) can mean the season (as in the example sentence) or have other meanings. There are also two words that have a similar pronunciation (at least in American English): produce (verb) and produce (noun): The first is pronounced /prÉËd(j)us/, or /proÊËd(j)us/; the second is pronounced /ËprÉËd(j)us/, or /ËproÊËd(j)us/. The difference between /proÊËd(j)us/ and /ËproÊËd(j)us/ is where the primary accent is, and the presence of a secondary accent in place of the primary accent of the first word. link|improve this answer answered Feb 12 '11 at 7:15 kiamlaluno 24.3k31978 1 A lot of two-syllable words (or identically spelled noun/verb pairs with matching meanings) are like that: "object", "subject", "reject", "retard", "defect". – Malvolio Feb 19 '11 at 10:34 feedback Your Answer _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ draft saved ____________________ log in or Name ______________________________ Email ________________________________________ required, but never shown Home Page ________________________________________ Post Your Answer Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged pronunciation or ask your own question. Welcome! This is a collaboratively edited question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required. Got a question about the site itself? meta is the place to talk about things like what questions are appropriate, what tags we should use, etc. about » faq » meta » tagged pronunciation × 420 asked 11 months ago viewed 147 times active 11 months ago Visit Meta What is the meaning of the descriptivism tag? Promoting English Language & Usage Reputation required to “create tags” vs. “retag questions” Comment or answer? Related Pronunciation of “hypokeimenon” Pronunciation of “of” Pronunciation of “often” Pronunciation of Paraguay Pronunciation of “Blessed” Pronunciation of “jsfiddle” Pronunciation of “applicable” the pronunciation of 'occult' Pronunciation of “theodicy” What's the correct pronunciation of “epitome”: “Epi-tome” or “Epi-tuh-mi”? The pronunciation of buoy Pronunciation of “err” Pronunciation of “cache” What's the reason for the difference in pronunciation between “dispatch” and “dispatcher”? Pronunciation of “Wales” and “whales” in Scotland Pronunciation of “ohloh” How can I break English L2 pronunciation habits? Pronunciation of “McLeod” Softened pronunciation of consonants, such as “t” or “s” followed by “y” What is the pronunciation for the word 'pluriharmonic'? Different pronunciation of /iks/ in “excuse” and “sixteen” Is “po-TAH-to” an acceptable pronunciation for “potato”? pronunciation of “a” Pronunciation of “automata” Pronunciation of “honest” question feed about | faq | blog | chat | data | podcast | shop | legal | advertising info | mobile | contact us | feedback ■ stackoverflow.com ■ api/apps ■ careers ■ serverfault.com ■ superuser.com ■ meta ■ area 51 ■ webapps ■ gaming ■ ubuntu ■ webmasters ■ cooking ■ game development ■ math ■ photography ■ stats ■ tex ■ english ■ theoretical cs ■ programmers ■ unix ■ apple ■ wordpress ■ physics ■ home improvement ■ gis ■ electronics ■ android ■ security ■ bicycles ■ dba ■ drupal ■ sharepoint ■ scifi & fantasy ■ user experience rev 2012.2.2.892 site design / logo © 2012 stack exchange inc; user contributions licensed under cc-wiki with attribution required English Language and Usage - Stack Exchange works best with JavaScript enabled