How do you pronounce "poem?"

[BurtWorm]

Poll question: How do you pronounce "poem?"

[terrya]

1. PO-em

At least, that's how I pronounce it.

[Stop_the_War]

2. PO-em

[Reverend_Smitty]

3. I had an english teacher back in high school

that would always get on our cases about the correct pronounciation of poem...but now I say it the proper way

[BurtWorm]

6. How did you used to pronounce it?

[Reverend_Smitty]

9. Pome...we were 14 year old kids from Jersey...

but now I'm so-fist-icated :evilgrin:

[BurtWorm]

14. That explains why I mispronounced it that way for the vast majority of my

days. I was born in NJ, as were my parents. It's only very recently that my wife (a born and bred NYC-er) corrected me.

[Reverend_Smitty]

19. Yeah...

I've been trying to correct my mispronunciations over the last couple of years but sometimes I just get into a conversation and forget. I actually said yous guys the other day...ugh! It's tough because my natural speaking style is very quick and I usually "mush" together my words. Although one thing I will never change, I grew up in Trenton (tren'en) I will never call it anything different!

[Snap]

23. learn that pome...learn that pome

High up in the apple tree
I spied and apple
but so high I thought I couddn't reach'er

But then I thought
I could should I
get it for my teacher

(Unnamed student, Miss Crabtees class, The Little Rascals.)

[Aristus]

4. My mother says "poim". Drives me crazy.

And she's a sophisticated, educated woman. Oh well.

[last_texas_dem]

10. Is she from the South originally?

I've just always said it that way 'cause that was how I grew up hearing it. Heck, my mom says it that way and she's an English teacher!

[Aristus]

13. Montgomery, Alabama.

I was born and raised in San Antonio, and I say: "poe-umm".

[last_texas_dem]

21. Interesting

Sometimes the area you grow up in can play the largest role in how you say it. I grew up (and still live) in rural East Texas, where the dialects of a lot of people aren't much different than those in states like Mississippi and Alabama. However, Texans I know from bigger cities like Dallas and Austin often don't have much in the way of an accent, or have more of a Texan twang than a southern drawl. And I figure those who live in north Texas and the Panhandle, even the rural parts, probably have much less of an accent than those in the southern areas.

[Redstone]

12. Is she from New England?

That pronunciation is pretty common here.

Not that it's correct.

Redstone

[kick-ass-bob]

5. po-um.

-em doesn't flow out of my mouth right.
:shrug:

[last_texas_dem]

7. Poym

Or more precisely, "poyyyum"!

[BurtWorm]

8. I knew I forgot a possibility!

:evilfrown:

[last_texas_dem]

18. Well you know

Someone's gotta stand up for the hick dialects here, right? :-)

[Misunderestimator]

24. That's how I used to say it growing up in Texas...

now I'm all yankee-fied though so it's po-em.

[progressoid]

11. Phew. Glad I got that off my chest.

[Magrittes Pipe]

15. "15-year-old's-attempt-to-get-laid"

[XNASA]

16. Throat warbler mangrove.

[On the Road]

17. The First Two are Not Necessarily Different

if you use that upside-down "e", what my schoolteacher called the "schwa" sound. In that case, all vowels sound alike.

[AlCzervik]

20. Po-m

[Dervill Crow]

22. Po-eem, but I got set straight in first grade.

Now it's poem, pretty straightforward just like it's spelled.