Hacker News

points by Rapzid 17 hours ago | 0 comments

Poem is two.

In American English, poem is pronounced as rhyming with "tome"

I could imagine in British English it might be a two-syllable "poh-ehm" though

As a native speaker from the US who knows it as two syllables, what region of the US are you referring to? Is this a deep south thing?

[–] Rapzid 15 hours ago

If you're from part of the US where they don't talk right, sure ;)

It's two in Merriam-Webster. If it were a song it would fly, but for a haiku I'm throwing a flag on the word-play.

[–] goodmythical 8 hours ago

Merriam-Webster is the wrong horse if you want to force two syllables given that Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) has several acceptable pronunciations, one syllable (rhyming with “home”) and two syllables (with the second pronounced like “um” or “im” or “em”).

All on page 956 if you'd like to check ;)

https://archive.org/details/merriamwebstersc00merr_6/page/95...

[–] Rapzid 2 hours ago

Bedlam..

First down.

[–] goodmythical 16 hours ago

Poem is one or two. Artistic license is deployed to enforce use of the singular