# suggest - pronunciation



## audiolaik

Hello,

I've just learnt that in AmEnglish there are two possibilities for its native speakers to pronounce the word _suggest_, namely

a) sə*g*'ʤest 

 b) sə'ʤest

source

My question is: How common is version "a"? 

Thank you!

Audiolaik


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## ewie

(British Intruder Alert: I don't think I've _ever_ heard _anyone_ pronounce 'suggest' like that, Mr.Laik.)


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## mplsray

audiolaik said:


> Hello,
> 
> I've just learnt that in AmEnglish there are two possibilities for its native speakers to pronounce the word _suggest_, namely
> 
> a) sə*g*'ʤest
> 
> b) sə'ʤest
> 
> source
> 
> My question is: How common is version "a"?



The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary gives the two pronunciations one after the other, with no qualifying words. According to the way that dictionary lists pronunciation variants, that would mean that the pronunciations are roughly equal in usage. From the notes on pronunciation in the introductory pages of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed. (the online version is based upon the M.-W. Collegiate): "A variant that is appreciably less common than the preceding variant is preceded by the word _also._"


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## Driven

I have heard both ways said but I personally prefer the first one. I asked all my kids (2 boys 2 girls) to say the word and I spelled it for them. They all said it the first way. (Of course they all learned to talk from me so it's not a true sampling!)


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## natkretep

Amazing! Again non-American, but have listened to many Americans talking and don't recall having heard version (a), and if I did hear it I would have noticed it!


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## tannen2004

I wonder if there might be regional variations on this?  I personally say and hear the first one a lot in the Midwest.  In fact, saying the second one sounds (or maybe it's feels) funny.  But I suspect that in certain places the second pronunciation is more common.


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## Driven

The "g" sound in version 'a' is very subtle so there is not a huge difference in the way it sounds - especially if you are talking fast.  (I am from the Southwest)


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## JamesM

I am from the west coast and I say it the same way as Driven and tannen2004.  It's not comparable to "ingest" for me (which would make it "suh-gest"; I take it that's the second pronunciation).  Instead, as Driven said, there is an extra "g" but it's subtle.

It's not unheard of in my experience to hear "suh-gest", but it's vary rare in my everyday experience.


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## Loob

Can I ask a question, despite being an(other) intrusive Brit?

Insertion of a hard "g" before the /dʒ/ in _suggest_ sounds very strange to me; but insertion of a "d" before the /dʒ/ sound doesn't.

Are really talking here about a 'g'? Or are we talking about a 'd'?


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## chamyto

Loob said:


> Can I ask a question, despite being an(other) intrusive Brit?
> 
> Insertion of a hard "g" before the /dʒ/ in _suggest_ sounds very strange to me; but insertion of a "d" before the /dʒ/ sound doesn't.
> 
> Are really talking here about a 'g'? Or are we talking about a 'd'?


 
Despite being Spanish , I always thought that this was the correct pronunciation         sə'ʤest


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## tannen2004

Loob said:


> Can I ask a question, despite being an(other) intrusive Brit?
> 
> Insertion of a hard "g" before the /dʒ/ in _suggest_ sounds very strange to me; but insertion of a "d" before the /dʒ/ sound doesn't.
> 
> Are really talking here about a 'g'? Or are we talking about a 'd'?



I think that might be a third pronunciation.  I definitely say it with a hard "g" not a "d", but I've heard "sud-gest" with a "d" before in a addition to the "suh-gest" pronunciation.


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## mplsray

Loob said:


> Can I ask a question, despite being an(other) intrusive Brit?
> 
> Insertion of a hard "g" before the /dʒ/ in _suggest_ sounds very strange to me; but insertion of a "d" before the /dʒ/ sound doesn't.
> 
> Are really talking here about a 'g'? Or are we talking about a 'd'?



We're talking /g/.

If someone had asked me before I read this thread whether any English speaker said _suggest_ without the /g/ preceding /dʒ/ I would have insisted that none do, although I must have heard it many times in my life.

I have an interesting bit of history to add to the discussion. I found in Google Books, in volume 26 of the Pennsylvania School Journal, from the year 1878, the article "Every-Day English: The Difficulty of Spelling as We Speak" by Richard Grant White, who discusses a spelling reform called Glossik proposed by Alexander John Ellis. Ellis proposed for _suggestion_ the spelling _sujestyen._ White met with Ellis and they listened carefully to each other's speech. In the article, White asserts that Ellis does not pronounce words in the way his system suggests he does, and concerning _suggest,_ White says,



> What his pronunciation of "suggest" is I shall not venture to say, but I should almost as soon expect to hear him say _susseed_ for "suc-ceed" as _sujest_ for "sug-gest."



Yet the Century Dictionary of roughly that time, 1895, which, like most American dictionaries of the era favored New England pronunciation, shows _suggest_ without the hard _g_ sound, and White may well have heard educated Americans say it that way without recognizing that they were doing so. Ellis may very well have been saying _suggest_ without /g/.


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## JamesM

Loob said:


> Can I ask a question, despite being an(other) intrusive Brit?
> 
> Insertion of a hard "g" before the /dʒ/ in _suggest_ sounds very strange to me; but insertion of a "d" before the /dʒ/ sound doesn't.
> 
> Are really talking here about a 'g'? Or are we talking about a 'd'?



I'm talking about a 'g'.  It happens in the throat, not behind the teeth.


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## mplsray

chamyto said:


> Despite being Spanish , I always thought that this was the correct pronunciation         sə'ʤest



It is likely that, being Spanish, you learned Received Pronunciation, while the pronunciation with /g/ before /dʒ/ is an American pronunciation.


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## KenInPDX

This is odd - I was born and raised in Illinois, and I could swear I've never heard a hard g in suggest in my entire life, anywhere in the US or in any other English speaking situation. 

To me, the gg in "suggest" is pronounced the same was as the g in "indigestion".


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## mplsray

KenInPDX said:


> This is odd - I was born and raised in Illinois, and I could swear I've never heard a hard g in suggest in my entire life, anywhere in the US or in any other English speaking situation.
> 
> To me, the gg in "suggest" is pronounced the same was as the g in "indigestion".



Note that I, who was surprised that anyone would pronounce the word without /g/, was also born and raised in Illinois.

I expect that you, like me, have often heard the pronunciation that you do not use and simply did not notice it.


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## KenInPDX

mplsray,

You may be right, but I still think this is an odd situation. 

For what it is worth, the Oxford English Dictionary offers sə'ʤest 
as the only pronunciation.

I'm using an online version of the OED, and according to the help on the site, it covers both American and British pronunciations.


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## KenInPDX

For those of you who say you pronounce suggest with a /g/, could one of you go to this site and listen to the pronunciation and tell me if you hear a /g/ in it?  I don't, and I wonder if we're just hearing the same thing in different ways?

http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=suggest&submit=Submit


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## JamesM

KenInPDX said:


> For those of you who say you pronounce suggest with a /g/, could one of you go to this site and listen to the pronunciation and tell me if you hear a /g/ in it?  I don't, and I wonder if we're just hearing the same thing in different ways?
> 
> http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=suggest&submit=Submit



No, I don't hear it there.   If you go to this site, pick any US voice model and type in "suggest" you'll hear what I call the pronunciation with the subtle "g".

http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html

It's a brief stop, not quite a glottal stop.  I'm terrible with IPA and explanations of pronunciation but I hear it in these voices.


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## Loob

KenInPDX said:


> For those of you who say you pronounce suggest with a /g/, could one of you go to this site and listen to the pronunciation and tell me if you hear a /g/ in it? I don't, and I wonder if we're just hearing the same thing in different ways?
> 
> http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=suggest&submit=Submit


Hi KenInPDX

No, I don't hear a 'g' in the pronunciation on your site. It sounds exactly like the way I pronounce "suggest". But then it also sounds like BrE....


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## JamesM

KenInPDX said:


> This is odd - I was born and raised in Illinois, and I could swear I've never heard a hard g in suggest in my entire life, anywhere in the US or in any other English speaking situation.
> 
> To me, the gg in "suggest" is pronounced the same was as the g in "indigestion".



Would you say "suggest" and "suh-jest" the same way, then?  The pronunciation file you gave sounds very much like "suh-jest" to me with the emphasis on the "jest" syllable.


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## KenInPDX

JamesM,

I heard the "g" in the first US English voice on the site you referenced, but not in any of the others.  However, I definitely do hear it in the first one.  I am slightly hearing impaired, so as mplsray suggested, I probably never picked up the g when other people use it since I don't say it that way myself.

Mplsray - if you're still following this thread, where in Illinois did you grow up?

Wordreference is endlessly fascinating!


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## Loob

JamesM said:


> No, I don't hear it there. If you go to this site, pick any US voice model and type in "suggest" you'll hear what I call the pronunciation with the subtle "g".
> 
> http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html
> 
> It's a brief stop, not quite a glottal stop. I'm terrible with IPA and pronunciation but I hear it in these voices.


Intriguing.  What I hear in the US voice models is either /dʒ/ or /dʒ/with a preceding /d/.  Perhaps we all hear what we're expecting to hear....


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## Forero

I have always heard and pronounced two _g_'s (the [g] and the [dʒ]) in _suggest_ and its derivatives. _Exaggerate_ and its derivatives only has the [dʒ].


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## JamesM

I hope we're not straying too far here, but if you try Heather US saying this:

"suggest not sahjest"

I think you'll hear the difference.   Perhaps not.  Perhaps you're right, Loob;  we might all hear what we expect to hear.


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## natkretep

KenInPDX said:


> For those of you who say you pronounce suggest with a /g/, could one of you go to this site and listen to the pronunciation and tell me if you hear a /g/ in it?  I don't, and I wonder if we're just hearing the same thing in different ways?
> 
> http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=suggest&submit=Submit



No /g/ there, but I think the US voice in the forvo site here has it. The Canadian voice doesn't.

I'm still amazed by this, and Loob must be right about us hearing what we expect to hear.


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## mplsray

KenInPDX said:


> mplsray,
> 
> You may be right, but I still think this is an odd situation.
> 
> For what it is worth, the Oxford English Dictionary offers sə'ʤest
> as the only pronunciation.
> 
> I'm using an online version of the OED, and according to the help on the site, it covers both American and British pronunciations.



You have been mislead. The OED shows only a limited selection of American pronunciations, and most of those in draft entries, which were written after the Second Edition, that edition constituting most of the online version.

The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary also fails to show the pronunciation with /g/, but it is intended for those learning English as a second language, and so is not comprehensive. The Cambridge Dictionary of American English entry suggest, however, does show both standard pronunciations in American English, as do all other dictionaries of American English available online which I know to have a printed version.



KenInPDX said:


> JamesM,
> 
> I heard the "g" in the first US English voice on the site you referenced, but not in any of the others.  However, I definitely do hear it in the first one.  I am slightly hearing impaired, so as mplsray suggested, I probably never picked up the g when other people use it since I don't say it that way myself.
> 
> Mplsray - if you're still following this thread, where in Illinois did you grow up?
> 
> Wordreference is endlessly fascinating!



I hear the /g/ in the American pronunciation of _suggest_ and s_uggestion_ (the same person is used in each case) and in none of the examples pronounced by speakers from the UK.

All my childhood was spent in a sort of rural neighborhood near Decatur, Illinois.


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## KenInPDX

mplsray said:


> You have been mislead. The OED shows only a limited selection of American pronunciations, and most of those in draft entries, which were written after the Second Edition, that edition constituting most of the online version.
> 
> The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary also fails to show the pronunciation with /g/, but it is intended for those learning English as a second language, and so is not comprehensive. The Cambridge Dictionary of American English entry suggest, however, does show both standard pronunciations in American English, as do all other dictionaries of American English available online which I know to have a printed version.



I think you are correct about the OED.  I looked up some other words, and it was clear that the American pronunciations were not always given.



mplsray said:


> I hear the /g/ in the American pronunciation of _suggest_ and s_uggestion_ (the same person is used in each case) and in none of the examples pronounced by speakers from the UK.
> 
> All my childhood was spent in a sort of rural neighborhood near Decatur, Illinois.



Mplsray - I think this could be a regional difference then.  I grew in the Chicago suburbs.  My partner grew up in St. Louis and reports having prounounced the /g/ when he was growing up, although he doesn't now because he's lived on the West Coast for a very long time.

I don't have a dialect map in front of me, but it seems plausible that the pronunciation in a rural area near Decatur could be closer to that of St. Louis than that of Chicago.  I've always thought  people from Downstate Illinois sounded different from those in Chicago.


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## mplsray

natkretep said:


> No /g/ there, but I think the US voice in the forvo site here has it. The Canadian voice doesn't.
> 
> I'm still amazed by this, and Loob must be right about us hearing what we expect to hear.



The pronunciation of _suggestion_ by a male from the US includes the /g/. The pronunciation of _suggestions_ by a female from the US does not. It may very well be that Canadians say the /g/ as often as Americans do. (The Encarta World English Dictionary, North American ed., has both pronunciations with no indication of any regional difference.)


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## Driven

I have always said the hard g in this word.  Like I said, I asked all four of my kids to say it after spelling it for them and they all said the g.  I have heard it both ways and they are very similar.  I am really surprised that there are people in the US that haven't heard it with the hard g sound!


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## audiolaik

Hello,

Just to throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing: The Longman Pronunciation Dictionary gives only one main AmE pronunciation, and it's  with a "g". There is also a symbol next to it. According to the explanations provided, it's a warning that the British and American pronunciations are different in an important and unpredictable way. 

Audiolaik


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## mplsray

audiolaik said:


> Hello,
> 
> Just to throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing: The Longman Pronunciation Dictionary gives only one main AmE pronunciation, and it's  with a "g". There is also a symbol next to it. According to the explanations provided, it's a warning that the British and American pronunciations are different in an important and unpredictable way.



"Unpredictable" in this sense perhaps because Americans also have the /g/-less pronunciation.

I haven't had much experience with the Longman, but the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary often gives a pronunciation variant as "US," and the reader cannot tell if the UK pronunciation is exclusive to the UK or also applies to American speech. For example, it shows _herb_ pronounced without /h/ for the US pronunciation, but some Americans, including me, pronounce that word with /h/. (The Cambridge Dictionary of American English does show both pronunciations.)


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## audiolaik

mplsray said:


> "Unpredictable" in this sense perhaps because Americans also have the /g/-less pronunciation.
> 
> I haven't had much experience with the Longman, but the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary often gives a pronunciation variant as "US," and the reader cannot tell if the UK pronunciation is exclusive to the UK or also applies to American speech. For example, it shows _herb_ pronounced without /h/ for the US pronunciation, but some Americans, including me, pronounce that word with /h/. (The Cambridge Dictionary of American English does show both pronunciations.)


 
That's why I grabbed the dictionary that is strictly devoted to the way you, native speakers, pronounce particular words. To tell you the truth, what I found there surprised me a bit.


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## Driven

I just got back from Sam's club (one of those big wharehouse stores) where I did a survey.  I asked 10 random people to say the word suggest which was written down.  All 10 said sug-jest with the hard g.  I couldn't find any British people so they were all American and most were from the Southwest but a few from the South and one from the Northeast.  I bet if I did the same experiment in England, it would be the opposite.  All 10 people would say suh-jest.  By the way, I've never heard anybody in America say herb with the h sound except little kids when they are reading it.  That could be a whole other thread!


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## HistofEng

I grew up in Miami and New York, and never realized there was a sug-jest pronunciation (most likely because I only hear what I expect to hear)... I've always said suh-jest


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## panjandrum

This is a total revelation to me.
None of my AE-speaking contacts have ever remarked on the oddity of our pronunciation of _suggest_, nor have I ever noticed theirs.
I can hear the /g/ in Heather's _suggest_, and very definitely in her _suggestion_ and _suggestive_.
I will have to corner some more of them over the weekend and provided that I am not arrested for asking young US citizens to say _suggest, suggestion _and _suggestive _while I get close to see and hear exactly what they say, I'll report back


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## chocko

audiolaik said:


> Hello,
> 
> I've just learnt that in AmEnglish there are two possibilities for its native speakers to pronounce the word _suggest_, namely
> 
> a) sə*g*'ʤest
> 
> b) sə'ʤest
> 
> source
> 
> My question is: How common is version "a"?
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> Audiolaik


"[A]" is the only pronunciation I ever noticed in my 62 years, until the last few months; I have a good university education (from U.Va.), and I attended two very good schools of Atlanta, Georgia, my lifelong home.


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## hyonematsu

I visited this thread, because a Japanese high-school student I teach English at a prep-school in Tokyo pronounced “suggest” “sə*g*'ʤest,” which I thought should be pronounced “sə'ʤest.” I first corrected him, but just to make sure I checked dictionary.com (the definition of suggest), and I was a bit puzzled to learn that “suggest” is pronounced “sə*g*'ʤest.”


I read all comments on this thread, and it is interesting to know that native speakers have different opinions regarding the pronunciation of “suggest.” I further searched various sites, and found the following comment:


“The pronunciation of ‘g’ generally (but not always) depends on the letter that follows it. The general rule is this: if the letter after ‘g’ is ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘y’, the pronunciation is a ‘soft g’ as in ‘fringe’… if a word derives from German, it’s usually a hard ‘g’, and if it is a Latin or French derivative, it’s a soft ‘g’.”


(Learning English -  Ask about English - Pronunciation of 'g')


dictionary.com explains as follows:


ORIGIN OF SUGGEST

1520–30; < Latin _suggestus _(past participle of _suggerere _to build up, supply, hint, suggest), equivalent to _sug- _sug- + _ges- _(past participle stem of _gerere _to carry, do, display) + _-tus _past participle suffix


So I figured “suggest” was originally pronounced with a soft ‘g’ in England as evidenced by mplsray’s comment as below (Sep. 23, 2006):


“I hear the /g/ in the American pronunciation of _suggest_ and s_uggestion_ (the same person is used in each case) and in none of the examples pronounced by speakers from the UK.”


As various types of Europeans, many of whom didn’t speak a word of English first, migrated to America, and as they were forced to speak English once they landed, it is not hard to imagine that they inserted a hard ‘g’ because that’s how the word is spelled. And, later-generation Americans naturally learned how to pronounce the word in the same way their parents did. I suspect that’s one of the major reasons why Americans differ in opinions regarding the pronunciation of “suggest” because they have different linguistic experiences depending on which part of America they are or their ancestors were from.


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## grassy

hyonematsu said:


> As various types of Europeans, many of whom didn’t speak a word of English first, migrated to America, and as they were forced to speak English once they landed, it is not hard to imagine that they inserted a hard ‘g’ because that’s how the word is spelled


I wonder how they knew how to spell the word, given that most of them were illiterate.


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## dojibear

hyonematsu, thank you for your detailed comments. I will comment on 2 things I disagree with you about:

[1] I agree with post #39. It is unlikely that US immigrants decided to pronounce a word based on its spelling in written English. I don't remember other examples of this. But I am sure their previous language affected how they pronounced English. I think some of those differences became so common we think of them today as "part of English", just as we think of some foreign words as "English".



hyonematsu said:


> I suspect that’s one of the major reasons why Americans differ in opinions regarding the pronunciation of “suggest”



[2] I think you misunderstand the situation. It is not a difference of opinion. No "single correct pronunciation" exists in American English. Some countries have an "official correct pronunciation". The UK and the US do not. People pronounce words *correctly *in multiple ways. Dictionaries (a bad reference for pronunciation) pick the most common, and often pick badly.

In any language, people that live 2,000 km apart speak differently. Sometimes they cannot understand each other. I've read that this is true in Arabic: there are several different "Arabic" languages, that cannot understand each other. The US is 26 times the size of Japan -- Boston and San Francisco are 5,000 km apart. The US has people that have lived 2,000 km apart for hundreds of years, and whose immigrant ancestors spoke different languages: English, German, French, Spanish and others.

About 40 years ago, US newscasters (on national TV news) agreed on a single US dialect to use (mid-west), because everyone can understand that. I recommend that accent. But on other TV shows, people often speak in New York or Los Angeles dialect.


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## hsstr8

To my Midwest USA “General American” ear, dropping the /g/ in “suggest” sounds just as odd as dropping it in “recognize”, though I hear both pronunciations every day, along with a growing list of other oddities.


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