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by unseen_forms 23 days ago
>A spoiler for the some-owner puzzle: "one" is a homophone of "won", apparently, but I can't see how they're pronounced the same.

Yeah it's unfortunate because I'm British, "one" and "won" are said the same for us but I didn't notice that they would be different for Americans. I should exclude puzzles where these differences happen, I just didn't spot this one. I'll have to test each puzzle with my best american accent on going forward.

>In the examples we have "thyme → time", but doesn't "thyme" have the "th" sound while "time" has the "t" sound?

In the UK we pronounce this like "time". Is that not the case in the US?

>Finally, "One new puzzle each day" - why do people do this? There's no way to play more than 1 puzzle, but by tomorrow I will have probably lost interest.

I need time to find the right puzzles and as you can see it can be pretty tricky to find ones that don't have regional pronunciation deviations, are fun to solve and are easy enough for a broad majority. I could add archive playing but frankly I do like the idea of a daily puzzle, even if some others don't like that. I think for as many people who don't like it there are people who do.

2 comments

I'm American, 'one' and 'won' are pronounced the same. I'm trying figure out how they would be pronounced differently...

Thyme and Time are also the same for me (although I understand this one). I wonder where the other commenter is from.

I saw a few YouTube videos about one vs won. Some pronounce them the same. Some say they pronounce them the same, but when they use an example sentence, "won" is clearly more o-ey, more closed, than "one". Some videos pronounce "won" with a definite "o"-ishness to it, like wOn, not wAn.

I can admit most people likely pronounce won as wAn and that I was wrong even though no one ever corrected my "won" having an o sound (or a mix of a and o).

Is "wanna" pronounced the same as "won a":

> I wanna do it

> I won a prize

> because I'm British, "one" and "won" are said the same for us

Are they pronounced like wan or like won?

> >In the examples we have "thyme → time", but doesn't "thyme" have the "th" sound while "time" has the "t" sound?

I've heard it pronounced with a "th" once or twice. Now I read that "time" with a "t" is more frequent but both are acceptable.

> I could add archive playing but frankly I do like the idea of a daily puzzle, even if some others don't like that. I think for as many people who don't like it there are people who do.

To me it's an unnatural limit. Imagine if we couldn't see past HN threads or something like that.