My wife pronounces it three different ways, each of which she can support. I pronounce it one, but other than that it’s the way I’ve heard it I can’t support my pronunciation even after some searches. What’s yours and why?
Sentour.
After reading this thread i don’t know anymore.
Cen tar
Or cen tor
I don’t pay close enough attention to myself to be sure which i normally say
Both relatable and understandable. Thank you for the answer!
Sen-tar
Because that’s the only way I’ve ever even heard it pronounced. This thread is gonna be wild.
Me too. I’m not a pedantic Latin-pronouncer who’d say “ken-tower”
I recognise that “kentawur” is correct, but reject it because “sentar” just sounds more correct.
Just because an English word was originally Latin and is written the same way, doesn’t mean it’s pronounced the same way. It’s an English word now. It has an English pronunciation, pluralisation and definition that can all be different from the original. “Kentawur” is not correct for the English word.
I thought this question would get almost no attention, but so far I’ve gotten almost one response per minute. Well predicted.
I even learned that local language changes things from a couple replies, which I hadn’t considered.
It’s still so interesting noticing comments from you, as I used to be frustrated by the bubble letters in your name. Since my client started suppressing that, I find you often contribute to conversations and I appreciate it.
I tried to express this once before, but at that point my client was still somewhat immature and randomly put my comment in a different, irrelevant thread.
Anyway, thanks for being a classic and long lasting part of lemmy and for showing up in my thread! I’m glad it provided you with some enlightenment.
I saw sen-tar as well!
I pronounce it centaur, as in it rhymes with faur, kaur, boobaur. You know, the “aur” sound, like “ooohhuuuurrr” but more dynamic.
sen-tor
As in taurus, which rhymes with torus.
This is the only way in English I’ve ever known
A bunch of Americans pronounce it sen-tar for some reason that I’ve never understood.
Seems just like a regional accent thing
That’s how it looks.
I also pronounce Taurus closer to “Tarus” than toorus.
That’s how merriam webster pronounces it! I’d pronounce it like that as well, got curious, so I googled
This is how I pronounce it in Canada
That’s one of my wife’s answers.
You’re very prompt.
Correctly, smugly and pretentiously
Nice.
I pronounce it like sen + tar, and accent it like boxcar. Can’t think of a reason, that’s just how it looks to me.
Like the other commenter I pronounce it sen-tor. Just like the word “dinosaur” I would pronounce die-no-sor if that makes sense. Both words end in “aur”.
…though now you’ve got me curious about how you and your wife pronounce dinosaur :)
Dino-saw. That’s just because of how the DNA molecule character pronounces it in Jurassic Park, and it cracks me up.
I always heard it as dina-sour in Jurassic Park, can’t shake that mental reference haha
ken-tavr, I think that’s similar to how it pronounced in a lot of languges around here, it’s also pretty similar how original greeks did it (kένταυροι)
Solid.
Cent-aur.
Kai-tawr, obvs
Man, English is a mess.
Be fair. We inherited most of that mess from the French.
You’re not wrong.
Cen-toor
Scent-ore
Simply “englishified” from French where I’ve ever heard only one way, Centaur (100 tor).
I pronounce it “Phil”. And he would appreciate it if you would stop staring at his missing eye.
Cent-our
