Why is 'second' commonly pronounced as 'se kend', not 'sek.ənd'?

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The following link gives the pronunciation of 'second' as sek.ənd.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/second

Despite that, I wonder why 'second' is commonly pronounced as sek end (the second syllable has the same sound as the word 'end').

Could someone let me know why it is so? Thanks.

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@tanguatlay,

Just a regional, dialect, accent, habit sort of thing.

tang, you've got to get over the fact that all people are not going to pronounce the same word exactly the same way.

There's only so far you can drill down.

Do you think about every single word you say and make sure you are pronouncing it exactly correct each time? Do not people in your country say the same word a little differently, depending on many factors?

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/Sek.ənd/ is along the lines of Received Pronunciation.

A minority of English speaking people have that accent, even the English.

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

Just a regional, dialect, accent, habit sort of thing.

tang, you've got to get over the fact that all people are not going to pronounce the same word exactly the same way.

There's only so far you can drill down.

Do you think about every single word you say and make sure you are pronouncing it exactly correct each time? Do not people in your country say the same word a little differently, depending on many factors?

We depend on dictionaries to establish the pronunciation. Yes, for some words, we differ in pronunciation, but that's because we follow the majority. So, if they pronounce those words incorrectly, it becomes the established pronunciations. The reason is we are not native speakers.

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

/Sek.ənd/ is along the lines of Received Pronunciation.

A minority of English speaking people have that accent, even the English.

Thanks, InfraBlue, but I'm surprised that some dictionaries give the pronunciation of 'second' as sek. end although the phonetic symbol shows sek.ənd. Is it because the dictionaries want to let users know the other pronunciation?

1 Reply

@tanguatlay,

The Cambridge Dictionary is as Received Pronunciation as it gets, and that pronunciation seems to be dying.

2 Replies

@tanguatlay,

tanguatlay wrote:

InfraBlue wrote:

/Sek.ənd/ is along the lines of Received Pronunciation.

A minority of English speaking people have that accent, even the English.

Thanks, InfraBlue, but I'm surprised that some dictionaries give the pronunciation of 'second' as sek. end although the phonetic symbol shows sek.ənd. Is it because the dictionaries want to let users know the other pronunciation?

Oftentimes a dictionary will show two or more common pronunciations.

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

The Cambridge Dictionary is as Received Pronunciation as it gets, and that pronunciation seems to be dying.

Thanks, InfraBlue.

I'm surprised that the Received Pronunciation of 'second' appears to be dying. The reason is I was taught, as a child about forty years ago, to pronounce it as sek.end. And this is how all our people pronounce this word. That's why I thought that we pronounced the word wrongly.

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@tanguatlay,

Don't think of these pronunciations as right or wrong, but rather more common or less common than the other.

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@tanguatlay,

Tang I've always heard it as sek nd

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@dalehileman,

dalehileman wrote:

Tang I've always heard it as sek nd

So your pronunciation is the version given by the dictionaries I have referred to.

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@tanguatlay,

Not exactly, Tang. I'd maintain there's no sound between

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

The Cambridge Dictionary is as Received Pronunciation as it gets, and that pronunciation seems to be dying.

I speak fairly pure RP and to be honest, I'm proud of it, to the extent (and no more) that any dialect speaker is entitled to be proud of the way they speak. I have not seen any convincing evidence that it is dying. I was born in Herne Hill and went to Alleyn's School, and I can drop into Sarf London if necessary but my default speech mode is BBC circa 1965. After cut glass, but before estuary. Flat.

By the way, I have noticed a lot of Americans say what sounds to my RightPondian ears as 'secont' (for 'second').

2 Replies

@contrex,

I have an opposite history as a child who moved near birth in California to Ohio, and lived through to California for a couple of months of kindergarten and my trying to run home when the staff didn't miss me. Then back and forth - Washington, New York, Los Angeles.

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@tanguatlay,

tanguatlay wrote:

The reason is we are not native speakers.

I'm talking about it your native language. I'm sure there are slight differences in how people say many words, regardless of what the dictionary of your language says.

We're not robots, language is a fluid thing.

In English, a person follows the majority too. The majority of the people you come into contact daily. But one English speakers majority is not anothers.

Not only do I pronounce words differently from British, Australian, Canadians etc people. I pronounce them differently from many groups in my own country. In moving around, I have over the years pronounced the same word several different ways.

The dictionary tells you how some word is "supposed" to be said, but it doesn't at all reflect the different ways they are said in reality. Similar yes. Obviously similar enough that people understand each other

Relax tang.

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@tanguatlay,

tanguatlay wrote:

I'm surprised that the Received Pronunciation of 'second' appears to be dying.

Why are you surprised? A lot can change in 40 years. That's an eternity in language nowadays.

I once went back to the place I had been born, and had lived the first 20 years of my life. It's known for having a very distinctive accent. Perhaps 15 years later, maybe less, I went back and spent a few days there. The first thing I noticied was that 20 year old sounded nothing like what I did at their age.
In fact, the accent of the people my age had significantly change, although it was still there. The only people who really sounded the way most people sounded while I was growing up were people over 60.

It's just the way it goes.

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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/second

\ˈse-kənd also -kənt, especially before a consonant -kən, -kəŋ\

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I don't think sek,end ius very common. I've always heard it as sek,(schwa)nd My keyboard I think has a schwa key on it somewhere, but I have no idea where. It is in any case the upside down e, the last sound in "sofa", which is what most unstressed vowels in English revert to.

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@chai2,

I agree with Chai

I take it, you consider words as dif-initive.

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@contrex,

contrex wrote:

InfraBlue wrote:
The Cambridge Dictionary is as Received Pronunciation as it gets, and that pronunciation seems to be dying.

I speak fairly pure RP and to be honest, I'm proud of it, to the extent (and no more) that any dialect speaker is entitled to be proud of the way they speak. I have not seen any convincing evidence that it is dying. I was born in Herne Hill and went to Alleyn's School, and I can drop into Sarf London if necessary but my default speech mode is BBC circa 1965. After cut glass, but before estuary. Flat.

By the way, I have noticed a lot of Americans say what sounds to my RightPondian ears as 'secont' (for 'second').

I didn't mean to offend. I read in Wikipedia that about 3% of Britons are RP speakers. One hears other British accents more and more often here in the US, like the Geico Gecko and cooking show hosts who speak with Estuary English sounding accents. My daughter watches Peppa Pig and the characters, for the most part, speak in RP. The accent is just charming in the children's voices, and it's irresistible to try and imitate them.

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