# pronunciation: coupon



## rusita preciosa

I heard the word *coupon* pronounced as [koopon] and [kyupon]. 

I say [koopon] - since the word is French, it sounds like the "correct way". 

Question to the natives: Does one way seem preferable and why? Does it matter?


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## JulianStuart

I say KOO-pon also but have heard the KYOO-pon quite a lot since I moved to the US (perhaps in 70:30 or 80:20 respectively).  I didn't use the word when I lived in the UK so I can't speak to whether KYOO-pon is used there as well.  I see that the dictionary.com box at the top leads to a Random House note : 





> It has developed an _American _pronunciation variant  [kyoo-pon]with an unhistorical y-sound not justified by the spelling. This pronunciation is used by educated speakers and is well-established as perfectly standard, although it is sometimes criticized.


It doesn't seem to me to be a specific regional issue since I hear both all over the place, but KYOO-pon is always the form less often heard.


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## Arkalai

I think [koopon] is more common. Both are acceptable and there would probably never be a misunderstanding if you used one or the other. Just a matter of personal preference.


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## Alxmrphi

Arkalai said:


> I think [koopon] is more common. Both are acceptable and there would probably never be a misunderstanding if you used one or the other. Just a matter of personal preference.



Yeah, there is a category of words that have this weird [oo] / [yu] distinction, but they both live alongside each other in a normal way, I'd advise sticking to [koopon], but being aware if you hear [kyupon] that it's just another version.


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## Ann O'Rack

I can't even figure out the logic of the KYOO-pon pronunciation. Where on earth did the Y sound come from? I wouldn't misunderstand someone saying KYOO-pon, but I _would_ cringe.


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## Alxmrphi

Ann O'Rack said:


> I can't even figure out the logic of the KYOO-pon pronunciation. Where on earth did the Y sound come from? I wouldn't misunderstand someone saying KYOO-pon, but I _would_ cringe.



It's like _cupid _[kyupid], that 'u' sound after the 'c' gets extrapolated to other words.

[Edit] : Also there is debate about the word '_cumin_', it's often said with the same sound [kyumin], though more often than not [kumin] (Thank god!).


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## Ann O'Rack

But, but, but... "cupid" and "cumin" don't have an O before the U, like "coupon" does. I'm comfortable with both of the words you give, I just can't see how the diphthong "ou" can be pronounced "you", and I can't think of any other words with "ou" in that would be pronounced the same way.


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## Alxmrphi

"ou" isn't the diphthong, that's the spelling of the word, when we talk about diphthongs we need to talk about sounds..
The '*ou*' in '*coupon*', pronounced the normal, and the other way are:

[koo] & [kyu]

When you said that '_cupid and cumin don't have an O before the U_', these are just spelling rules, _the sounds between the three words are the same_, and that's what we're talking about.. It's like comparing _bough, through, though_, and the '_ou_' in each of those, they are all different.
When I said the sounds were the same, I was talking about the possible ways of pronouncing it, I don't say [kyupon] or [kumin], but I was referring to the other pronunciations when drawing a comparison.

I'm sorry if you have understood but I thought it might be helpful to add this example:

*bare / bear* - these have exactly the same sounds, we can't draw comparisons on how they are spelt.
*breaks / brakes* - etc

So having coupon / cupid / cumin, just because 'coupon' is spelt with an 'ou', it doesn't alter the sound quality, which is what we were comparing between. But I do see your point because I directly compared it to words that had 'cu-' and not 'cou-' ..

I think it's relation to those other words means that some people pronounce it that way, and that's the logic I see in where it came from, I could be completely wrong, but I thought it was an interesting discussion . I've shot myself in the foot a bit here, basically, I think it's linked to those other words, that's all I can safely come up with at the moment!


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## Kevin Beach

I have never heard "kyoopon" in the UK. It's always "koopon".


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## JamesM

Ann O'Rack said:


> But, but, but... "cupid" and "cumin" don't have an O before the U, like "coupon" does. I'm comfortable with both of the words you give, I just can't see how the diphthong "ou" can be pronounced "you", and I can't think of any other words with "ou" in that would be pronounced the same way.



I don't think logic always applies to pronunciation, especially with these little added sounds.  How "idea" becomes "i-dee-uhr" in some versions of English is equally mysterious.    It's as if there are traditions in pronunciation that supercede the spelling.


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## Loob

Kevin Beach said:


> I have never heard "kyoopon" in the UK. It's always "koopon".


I'm with Kevin - I'm pretty sure I've never heard "kyoopon".


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## lablady

It _is _illogical, but it's "kyoopon" for me. It's the "koopon" version that sounds weird in my circle of acquaintances. 

I did a quick survey of everyone within earshot (three people), and we are in 100% agreement that it's pronounced "kyoopon". Warning: conclusion is not statistically valid.


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## JamesM

I've heard both and I'm fairly sure I've said both interchangeably.  I hear "kyoopon" on television and radio ads so much that I think it affects my pronunciation.  If I were thinking about it I would say, "koopon" but I'm sure I say it many times without thinking.  Actually, as I think more about it, I think my parents said, "kyoopon".


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## Rover_KE

Am I right in thinking that Americans pronounce Houston _Hewston_?

If so, there's your precedent for _cyewpon_.

Rover


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## JulianStuart

But there's the "Little Deuce _Coupe_" that remains stubbornly Y-less, even away from the Beach Boys' classic - we still have a 2-door _coupe_ and a 4-door sedan (or saloon)


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## JamesM

Rover_KE said:


> Am I right in thinking that Americans pronounce Houston _Hewston_?
> 
> If so, there's your precedent for _cyewpon_.
> 
> Rover


 
What a clever connection to make! I had never noticed this before.

(As far as I know, the street named Houston in New York is pronounced "How-stun" but the city in Texas is pronounced "Hew-stun".)


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## Alxmrphi

> Am I right in thinking that Americans pronounce Houston _Hewston_?



Hi Rover, we also call it the same way in England don't we? 
I'm from the same area of the UK as you and I'd say it like that (not [Hooston]).
Sort of like our own Euston station but preceded by 'H' -

Then again we are almost certainly influenced by hearing it by Americans, through TV etc.


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## ewie

Loob said:


> I'm pretty sure I've never heard "kyoopon".


Me neither.  It sounds 'unusual' to me.  (For unusual read _pretty weird_.)


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## pickarooney

It sounds like people who say 'kyoopon' are overcompensating for the common American pronunciation of 'stupid' as 'stoopid'?


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## sound shift

Let's compromise and say "voucher". 

No, actually, I say "KOOpon" and don't recall hearing the other pronunciation.


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## pickarooney

How do kyoopon people proncounce _coup d'état_?


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## natkretep

I have only heard kyoopon from American television. Also included in the Merriam-Webster as a secondary pronunciation. Not in the British dictionaries I have, even those that list American pronunciations.


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## Pedro y La Torre

I can imagine someone from the West of Ireland saying kyoo-pon. As it is, I only ever say koo-pon.


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## JamesM

pickarooney said:


> How do kyoopon people proncounce _coup d'état_?




This is not a general rule that all words with the "coup" combination of letters are pronounced as "kewp".  "Coup d'état", "recoup" and "coupe" are all pronounced with the "oo" sound.


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## Ann O'Rack

Sound Shift, I really like your thinking! 

And I apologise for being stupid with the word diphthong - I was too bothered about spelling it properly to make sure it was the right word to spell!


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## panjandrum

Pedro y La Torre said:


> I can imagine someone from the West of Ireland saying kyoo-pon. As it is, I only ever say koo-pon.


It appears in parts of The North as well.
Of course, parts of the West of Ireland are closer to America than they are to Dublin.


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## Alxmrphi

panjandrum said:


> It appears in parts of The North as well.
> Of course, parts of the West of Ireland are closer to America than they are to Dublin.



Linguistically as well as geographically  ?


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## bspielburg

Kyoo-pon is the original and best way.  English has a phonotactic restraint of three consecutive consonants in the onset, further restrained to the pattern 

/s/ + pulmonic + approximant

For example, "strength" is allowed with it's "str" onset, but an English-speaker would have trouble saying "ptkength".  That's only English though, so a Georgian-speaker would be fine saying "gvprckvni".

However, when the approximant is a /j/, the modern tendency is to drop it, regardless of spelling. So,
blue was "blyoo" now it's "bloo"
suit was "syoot" now it's "soot"
tube was "tyoob" now it's "toob"
coupon was "kyoopon" now it's "koopon"


Therefore, "kyoopon" is the original and traditionally standard way.


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## panjandrum

bspielburg said:


> Kyoo-pon is the original and best way.  English has a phonotactic restraint of three consecutive consonants in the onset, further restrained to the pattern
> 
> /s/ + pulmonic + approximant
> 
> For example, "strength" is allowed with it's "str" onset, but an English-speaker would have trouble saying "ptkength".  That's only English though, so a Georgian-speaker would be fine saying "gvprckvni".
> 
> However, when the approximant is a /j/, the modern tendency is to drop it, regardless of spelling. So,
> blue was "blyoo" now it's "bloo"
> suit was "syoot" now it's "soot"
> tube was "tyoob" now it's "toob"
> coupon was "kyoopon" now it's "koopon"
> 
> 
> Therefore, "kyoopon" is the original and traditionally standard way.


This is speculation.
Tracing back to the OED ...
The comment about blue is valid.
The comment about suit is valid.
The comment about tube is valid where tube is pronounced toob.  Only the ty... pronunciation is listed in the OED.
The comment about coupon is false.  There is no evidence supporting a ky... pronunciation.


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## natkretep

Agree with panj. _Coupon _is a 19th century borrowing from French; and the French spelling is preserved. I would have thought that the 'original' pronunciation would be closer to the French one, which would in fact be _koo_, not _kyoo_. I think coupon is different from _blue _or _sue_.

I *still *say _syoot _(for _suit_) and _tyoob _(for _tube_).


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## Pedro y La Torre

natkretep said:


> I *still *say _syoot _(for _suit_)



Many in Ireland do too.


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## pickarooney

bspielburg said:


> Kyoo-pon is the original and best way.  English has a phonotactic restraint of three consecutive consonants in the onset, further restrained to the pattern
> 
> /s/ + pulmonic + approximant
> 
> For example, "strength" is allowed with it's "str" onset, but an English-speaker would have trouble saying "ptkength".  That's only English though, so a Georgian-speaker would be fine saying "gvprckvni".
> 
> However, when the approximant is a /j/, the modern tendency is to drop it, regardless of spelling. So,
> blue was "blyoo" now it's "bloo"
> suit was "syoot" now it's "soot"
> tube was "tyoob" now it's "toob"
> coupon was "kyoopon" now it's "koopon"
> 
> 
> Therefore, "kyoopon" is the original and traditionally standard way.



You (and your phonotactic restraints ) seem to have overlooked the fact that the second letter in 'coupon' is an 'O', not a 'U' s in all the other examples.  There is no /j/. (there is no spyoon)


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## bspielburg

pickarooney said:


> You (and your phonotactic restraints ) seem to have overlooked the fact that the second letter in 'coupon' is an 'O', not a 'U' s in all the other examples.  There is no /j/. (there is no spyoon)



I did overlook that, but it is interesting because "tube" comes from the latin "tubus" which has no /j/. I can't understand why a /j/ should be added to such words only later to be removed.


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## Alxmrphi

The way we pronounce nearly every word in English has gone through a change, are you arguing we should not accept and standardise any change that the English language has gone through?
It's not a good arguement (IMHO) to say that "_that's the way it was, so that's the way it should be_"

If we take the word 'stone', in Old English it was pronounced /stɑːn/, then when English did its little "_I can't be bothered with inflectional endings anymore_" it added the letter 'e' to almost every case ending [around Chaucer's time] and the pronunciation changed to /stɑːne/, then the GVS changed it to (basically) /stəʊn/.
Would you ever say the first 2?

My point is, the 'original' way (IMHO) does not qualify as any arguement that a word should be pronounced a certain way, that that pronunciation is 'more correct'.

Regarding this comment:


> but it is interesting because "tube" comes from the latin "tubus" which has no /j/. I can't understand why a /j/ should be added to such words only later to be removed.


The /j/ is still there, alive and well..... just say the word "Youtube" - maybe in AE things might be different but the rest of the world still retains the /j/ sound (/ju;tju;b/)
I could never ever in a million years ever say /tuːb/.

I apologise if that's how other people pronounce that word, I'm not aware of that pronunciation being common and I find it quite strange, that's just my ignorance if it turns out to be common! My only point here is that the reason Old English is considered by language historians as a different language is because it's so different, on a spoken level, anyone who has not studied it would be able to understand what is going on, but this was once normal English.
The point I wanted to illustrate was, all of us think today's English is correct, so a change has occured (or rather, millions of small changes have occured) that we know accept as correct. The idea that an older way is more correct isn't really 'sound' because all we have to do is look at some changes that we all think are wrong to see that the idea of 'older / more traditional being more correct' doesn't stand up.

The people who pronounce it the older way are not wrong and I'm not making a point against them, just arguing that it's not more correct because it's older.


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## JamesM

I agree with much of what you've said, particularly the part about older vs. newer. 

I do take exception, though, with the statement "the rest of the world still retains the /j/ sound."  The people of the Philippines alone, population 90 million plus, employ the same pronunciation of tube ( /tuːb/ )  as American English does.

I don't have a resource to discover the common pronunciation of "coupon" in Philippine English. It would be an interesting question.  As far as I can tell online it's "coo" not "kyoo".


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## JeffinHK

I am from a small town in Texas.  I say cue-pon.  I understand the reasoning behind saying coo-pon, but I don’t care—it seems unnatural and affected to me.  Borrowed words are often pronounced in novel ways in the borrowing language.  We don’t pronounce the second syllable in the French way, so why should we be sticklers about the first syllable?  I feel the same way when somebody calls an envelope an “ahnvelope,” and when I see advertisements for the Buick “Ahnclave.”


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## dungeonmarm

In my dialect of US English, this word is usually pronounced 'kyoopon', but 'koopon' is sometimes heard, as well.


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## ewie

JeffinHK said:


> I am from a small town in Texas.  I say cue-pon.  I understand the reasoning behind saying coo-pon, but I don’t care—it seems unnatural and affected to me.


Welcome to the forum, JeffinHK
There may well be people who would find _your_ pronunciation unnatural and affected, but would be too polite to say so


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## Pedro y La Torre

dungeonmarm said:


> In my dialect of US English, this word is usually pronounced 'kyoopon', but 'koopon' is sometimes heard, as well.



You learn something new everyday. I've never heard "kyoopon" before.


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## Pedro y La Torre

JamesM said:


> I agree with much of what you've said, particularly the part about older vs. newer.
> 
> I do take exception, though, with the statement "the rest of the world still retains the /j/ sound."  The people of the Philippines alone, population 90 million plus, employ the same pronunciation of tube ( /tuːb/ )  as American English does.
> 
> I don't have a resource to discover the common pronunciation of "coupon" in Philippine English. It would be an interesting question.  As far as I can tell online it's "coo" not "kyoo".



Filipinos are not native English speakers, as far as I'm aware.


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## JamesM

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Filipinos are not native English speakers, as far as I'm aware.



Some are and some aren't.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

ewie said:


> Welcome to the forum, JeffinHK
> There may well be people who would find _your_ pronunciation unnatural and affected, but would be too polite to say so



I'm never too polite to refrain from saying such a thing, and I do find "kyoopon" unnatural (they are generally koo-pons around here), but I don't find it affected so much as I find it - how can I put this nicely - _unsophisticated_ in a rural way, rather like pronouncing "bouquet" as "boh-kay", or "mischievous" with a fourth syllable as "mis-CHEE-vee-us.


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## Oddmania

I think "_coupon_" is one of those words that have a wide range of pronunciations throughout the U.S and Canada, like _pecan, crayon, caramel, aunt, pajamas, lawyer, bagel, salmon_, etc.


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## dojibear

rusita preciosa said:


> since the word is French





JeffinHK said:


> Borrowed words are often pronounced in novel ways in the borrowing language. We don’t pronounce the second syllable in the French way, so why should we be sticklers about the first syllable?


In my opinion this is not a "French word" or a "borrowed word". This word has been used in English since 1822. 

The original word (a French word) referred only to bond certificate coupons, and "coupon" meant "a portion that is cut off with scissors". The other meanings in English (discount ticket, discount or rebate coupon) developed later in the 1800s.

Historically, every word in English is derived from words in some other language. Roughly 29% of English words derive from French words. That does not make 29% of English "borrowed words" or "French words".


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## PaulQ

Back in the 1960s, the headmistress, RP (as it was c.1930) speaker, Oxford educated, and then aged circa 60, of my school said "kyoo-pon": we were all a little amazed.


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## natkretep

dojibear said:


> Historically, every word in English is derived from words in some other language.


_Every _word? Surely there are native English items in English today that are derived from Old English.


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## dojibear

natkretep said:


> _Every _word? Surely there are native English items in English today that are derived from Old English.



That's true. Maybe I worded my sentence poorly. But Old English was a different language, not much closer to modern English than German is. The chart of English word origins groups Old/Middle English within the "Germanic Languages" group.


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## dojibear

French has an "oo" sound similar to English "oo". The first syllable in French "coupon" uses this sound.

French has another "oo" sound that does not exist in English, but exists in several languages. To me (an AE speaker), this vowel sometimes sounds like "oo" and sometimes sounds like "ee". In pinyin this vowel is written as *ü*.

There are several English words, derived from French words, where "yoo" is the English version of this French "oo" sound. For example "perfume" and "legume".

Perhaps (speculation) this trend has carried over to other "oo" words, in some regional dialects of English.


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## JeffinHK

Welcome to the forum, JeffinHK
There may well be people who would find _your_pronunciation unnatural and affected, but would be too polite to say so

Thank you for the welcome!  What I meant was that nearly everybody where I am from says “cue-pon.”  It strikes me as odd to hear “coo-pon.”  Odd enough that I would turn around if I heard it said that way from three conversations over.  I grew up saying “cue-pon,” I don’t wish to change, and even if I did, I don’t wish to have awkwardly thoughtful moments while effecting this particular change in my pronunciation.  Other Anglophones from other dialects may feel differently.


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## dojibear

There is no reason for you to change how you say words. I grew up around New York. When I spent a couple years in Texas, I noticed many differences. But I admired the way Texans speak. If I could choose my regional accent, I would choose a Texas one.


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## JeffinHK

dojibear said:


> There is no reason for you to change how you say words. I grew up around New York. When I spent a couple years in Texas, I noticed many differences. But I admired the way Texans speak. If I could choose my regional accent, I would choose a Texas one.



Well, thank you.  Actually I lived in New York for 15 years.  The HK in my user name is for Hell’s Kitchen, where I lived when I first registered for this site.  If you live in Fresno, you almost live where there’s a Texan accent anyway—I believe Fresno and Bakersfield are non-Southern exclaves of the pin-pen merger, owing to all the Okies who moved there during the Depression.

I just didn’t want to leave the impression that I thought any English-speaker who said “coo-pon” was speaking in an affected way.  As a Southerner, I would not presume to denigrate the dialects of others, having been on the receiving end of such criticism so many times.


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