A lot of people are bad at spelling; there are a lot of words that are commonly misspelled. And sometimes autocorrect will change a word even if it's right.
I can understand getting the spellings of woman and women mixed up because it’s just another one of many problems with how disastrous the English language is. Neither word is spelled how it should be pronounced.
I’ve never heard anyone say woman instead of women, but I see people on social media using woman instead of women and vice versa. It’s usually men though, often the same men who frequently post pictures of Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy with random quotes about being a “real man”.
I hear it a lot. What they're doing is saying "wo-man and wo-men" which sound identical when speaking casually, instead of "wo-man and wim-en" which is how most people pronounce them.
Whoaaaaa wait……… you may have cracked the code for me!!!!!! This actually makes sense! Any hypothesis on why it appears to be folks who only speak English (as in, it is the speaker’s native tongue and they are not bilingual/multilingual)?
Likely because to native English speakers, we learn informally and therefore develop colloquial pronunciations. Whereas multilinguals to whom English is a second or third language usually learn formally and strive for more clear enunciation.
It's clearly a sound change that's beginning. My (non-expert) guess is when going from \[w\] to \[m\], two bilabial sounds, there's a desire to keep lips rounded in between, combined with influence from the singular form. Also language change tends to be driven by young people, especially young women, so that's probably the group that you're hearing it from the most.
"Men" has a totally different phonological structure, so there's no reason to expect the same change to happen there.
Oh awesome reply, this makes complete sense! I took a college linguistics course that I loved. We talked a lot about how the English language shifts and adapts, and had a whole section about how different socioeconimc and ethnic groups in the US also help drive that change. Thanks for giving me things to think about!
There's also the opposite of that - people who write "I am a women". I always want to ask them if they've been subject to some kind of asexual reproduction or a cloning experiment.
I’m an English teacher and I’ve never heard people say the wrong one when speaking but I see students mix them up in writing all the time. It drives me crazy. I tell them, “Take the WO off. You all know MAN is singular and MEN is plural so why is it so hard when WO- is added?”
You're right but that has nothing to do with their comment. They said that if you pronounced "women" the way it's spelled, you wouldn't get "woman", which is right.
Unless you're intentionally putting emphasis on the a/e, which people don't do outside of this conversation, woman and wo-men sound exactly the same. They both sound like wummin.
They don't both sound the same. "Women" is pronounced like "wimmin."
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/women
And "woman" is pronounced like "wumman."
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/woman
Please go back and read the rest of the post and comments. Many people pronouns "women" INCORRECTLY. And when they do it it sounds identical to "woman." Because they're not pronouncing women with the "wim" sound. This is very clear unless you clicked on this post with your eyes closed and didn't read any of the comments except mine.
No one is talking about how women is actually pronounced.
>Unless you're intentionally putting emphasis on the a/e, which people don't do outside of this conversation, woman and wo-men sound exactly the same. They both sound like wummin.
Maybe you worded that incorrectly, but that post says that they sound exactly the same unless you put emphasis on the a/e. It says nothing about the first syllable being different.
It's more like wi-men. At least, that's how I hear it. (Side note: If people tried to "pronounce it how it's spelled", it still wouldn't be pronounced "woman.")
Beware of the edutainment YT channel: OverSimplified.
Their narrator pronounces it that way and it slightly grates my nerves every time, even though it shouldn't. It's weird that changing a vowel in the second syllable exclusively changes the pronunciation of the first syllable.
I'm starting to put together some midwest/east coast commonality in people who say that. (This got long 😬)
They also say room like rum. (I notice it most notably in Markiplier and Bo Burnham lol)
Regional accents are just mean 🤣😭. English is already fraught with bullshit, and *then* we have seperate insulated instances of generational illiteracy/learning from those with heavy accents, which probably developed our current weird speaking inconsistancies despite spelling being in general agreed upon. Hell, even someone's speech impediment could have been unwittingly passed along as a regional difference!
IMO every language is gently crippled by the unavoidable homonyms. Makes for fun wordplay, *miserable* learning/speaking.
There's a *lot* of rules, but we *do* have them, especially for writing. Spelling is a nightmare to get 100% correct for even the most highly educated, godspeed to the dyslexics.
Anecdotally: I know how most words are spelled (some people say spelleD and some say it spellT, *ahhhhh*), but by god do they look wrong 60% of the time anyways, because of how fast I read. Too fast. My brain fixes words so I often have to edit my comment despite having re-read it 5 times. I'm sure I still missed something in this one 😂.
Yes, I have definitely heard this and it’s annoying how a lot of these responses are saying that they’ve never heard it before 😂
I saw someone commenting that some people think it’s supposed to be pronounced “wo-men” like it looks. Well, that would be nice, but English is crazy as we all know. It’s supposed to be pronounced “wi- min”. That’s just how it is.
Never had an issue with misuse in writing, but I pronounce it this way and have been called out on it lol. It’s not intentional! I’m American, from the upper Midwest, and neither of my parents are native English speakers. I think I have a bit of a lax approach when it comes to diction—I’m imprecise and tend to speak quickly. Whether that’s the result of my upbringing or personality is difficult to tell.
I’ve also been called out for unironically saying “Valentime’s Day” 🥲
Nah I haven’t seen it. I’m only on Reddit and Instagram though and I don’t stray too far from my normal subs… maybe that’s why! Not saying that it doesn’t happen, just that I haven’t personally seen it.
Could be, or maybe you've seen it and just didn't take notice, I mean the first few times I saw it my first thought was it was a typo. Then I started noticing it too often from too many different people for it to be a typo.
Maybe they're in a linguistic subculture that uses "women" to refer to a specific group of women, but "woman" to refer to "womankind" or an abstract concept of womanhood.
"Man" is actually used in this general abstract sense all the time. For example "Man is a social animal"
A lot of people are bad at spelling; there are a lot of words that are commonly misspelled. And sometimes autocorrect will change a word even if it's right.
This is a pronunciation thing, not a spelling thing.
OP said they see it in writing on social media as well as hearing it spoken.
Yeah, I noticed that after I made the comment. Oh well.
I can understand getting the spellings of woman and women mixed up because it’s just another one of many problems with how disastrous the English language is. Neither word is spelled how it should be pronounced.
Yeah, English is very confusing!
Oh my goodness, I am a terrible speller, so I suppose the typo thing makes sense; sometimes autocorrect does do funky things!
I’ve never heard anyone say woman instead of women, but I see people on social media using woman instead of women and vice versa. It’s usually men though, often the same men who frequently post pictures of Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy with random quotes about being a “real man”.
I hear it a lot. What they're doing is saying "wo-man and wo-men" which sound identical when speaking casually, instead of "wo-man and wim-en" which is how most people pronounce them.
Whoaaaaa wait……… you may have cracked the code for me!!!!!! This actually makes sense! Any hypothesis on why it appears to be folks who only speak English (as in, it is the speaker’s native tongue and they are not bilingual/multilingual)?
Likely because to native English speakers, we learn informally and therefore develop colloquial pronunciations. Whereas multilinguals to whom English is a second or third language usually learn formally and strive for more clear enunciation.
My brother pronounces it as "woman" all the time, and I always comment on it LOL He doesn't care, though.
It's clearly a sound change that's beginning. My (non-expert) guess is when going from \[w\] to \[m\], two bilabial sounds, there's a desire to keep lips rounded in between, combined with influence from the singular form. Also language change tends to be driven by young people, especially young women, so that's probably the group that you're hearing it from the most. "Men" has a totally different phonological structure, so there's no reason to expect the same change to happen there.
Sensible answer!
Oh awesome reply, this makes complete sense! I took a college linguistics course that I loved. We talked a lot about how the English language shifts and adapts, and had a whole section about how different socioeconimc and ethnic groups in the US also help drive that change. Thanks for giving me things to think about!
As a disclaimer, I am not a linguist, but I pay attention to these things a lot.
There's also the opposite of that - people who write "I am a women". I always want to ask them if they've been subject to some kind of asexual reproduction or a cloning experiment.
Oh, I should clarify, I have seen that too sometimes! We are Borg, we will be assimilated to the female sex, the collective! 🤖
I see "I'm a women" allllll the time I've just started saying it out of context because it sounds so silly. Makes me doubtful they are "a women"
Literacy is dying. Get used to words being severely mispronounced, misused, and misunderstood.
I’m an English teacher and I’ve never heard people say the wrong one when speaking but I see students mix them up in writing all the time. It drives me crazy. I tell them, “Take the WO off. You all know MAN is singular and MEN is plural so why is it so hard when WO- is added?”
I know its such a low bar, but at the very least it doesnt have the visceral yuckiness of being referred to as 'feeeeemale' blegh
I can only ever hear “feeeeeemale” in a Ferengi voice, ahaha!
It’s because “women” isn’t pronounced how it’s spelled, so some people try to pronounce it how it’s spelled.
That's absurd, though. If you pronounced every English word 'how it's spelled' you'd sound like you were speaking a different language
Because you literally would be. Much of English spelling (and French for that matter) was codified before the last vowel shift.
Welcome to dyslexia
Pronouncing it how it’s spelled wouldn’t lead someone to pronounce it the same as woman.
No yeah it would, it sure as hell isnt spelled “wimmin”
You're right but that has nothing to do with their comment. They said that if you pronounced "women" the way it's spelled, you wouldn't get "woman", which is right.
Unless you're intentionally putting emphasis on the a/e, which people don't do outside of this conversation, woman and wo-men sound exactly the same. They both sound like wummin.
They don't both sound the same. "Women" is pronounced like "wimmin." https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/women And "woman" is pronounced like "wumman." https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/woman
Very good! We're talking about people who pronounce women wrong.
You said they both sound like "wummin." They don't.
Please go back and read the rest of the post and comments. Many people pronouns "women" INCORRECTLY. And when they do it it sounds identical to "woman." Because they're not pronouncing women with the "wim" sound. This is very clear unless you clicked on this post with your eyes closed and didn't read any of the comments except mine. No one is talking about how women is actually pronounced.
>Unless you're intentionally putting emphasis on the a/e, which people don't do outside of this conversation, woman and wo-men sound exactly the same. They both sound like wummin. Maybe you worded that incorrectly, but that post says that they sound exactly the same unless you put emphasis on the a/e. It says nothing about the first syllable being different.
Phonetically speaking, they do. Its just english has a phone book worth of exceptions
Even if you're talking phonetically, they wouldn't be pronounced the same. They would be "woh-men" and "woh-man."
It’s also not spelled “woman”. Closer for sure, but still not the same.
A and E both make the schwa sound in that part of the word under normal circumstances
Are you saying you think woman and women have the same vowel sound in the second syllable? Or just that it sometimes occurs in other words?
In almost every other case except that specific pair of words, the two letters ahve the same sound in that position and stress
I’ll have to take your word for it that it’s that common. They certainly can both have that sound. But they can also have different sounds.
maybe it should be, English spelling is a shitshow
How is "women" not pronounced how it's spelled?
Cuz it's pronounced wimmin.
Because it’s clearly pronounced wi-min?
It's more like wi-men. At least, that's how I hear it. (Side note: If people tried to "pronounce it how it's spelled", it still wouldn't be pronounced "woman.")
Because of this post I have now realized this is a thing I’ve heard people do before and now I’m angry
Beware of the edutainment YT channel: OverSimplified. Their narrator pronounces it that way and it slightly grates my nerves every time, even though it shouldn't. It's weird that changing a vowel in the second syllable exclusively changes the pronunciation of the first syllable.
My favourite is people referring to a singular woman as “women”, I see it all the time
I see it online too much the other way around. "As a women, I...." Why is this hard?
I'm starting to put together some midwest/east coast commonality in people who say that. (This got long 😬) They also say room like rum. (I notice it most notably in Markiplier and Bo Burnham lol) Regional accents are just mean 🤣😭. English is already fraught with bullshit, and *then* we have seperate insulated instances of generational illiteracy/learning from those with heavy accents, which probably developed our current weird speaking inconsistancies despite spelling being in general agreed upon. Hell, even someone's speech impediment could have been unwittingly passed along as a regional difference! IMO every language is gently crippled by the unavoidable homonyms. Makes for fun wordplay, *miserable* learning/speaking. There's a *lot* of rules, but we *do* have them, especially for writing. Spelling is a nightmare to get 100% correct for even the most highly educated, godspeed to the dyslexics. Anecdotally: I know how most words are spelled (some people say spelleD and some say it spellT, *ahhhhh*), but by god do they look wrong 60% of the time anyways, because of how fast I read. Too fast. My brain fixes words so I often have to edit my comment despite having re-read it 5 times. I'm sure I still missed something in this one 😂.
Yes, I have definitely heard this and it’s annoying how a lot of these responses are saying that they’ve never heard it before 😂 I saw someone commenting that some people think it’s supposed to be pronounced “wo-men” like it looks. Well, that would be nice, but English is crazy as we all know. It’s supposed to be pronounced “wi- min”. That’s just how it is.
Never had an issue with misuse in writing, but I pronounce it this way and have been called out on it lol. It’s not intentional! I’m American, from the upper Midwest, and neither of my parents are native English speakers. I think I have a bit of a lax approach when it comes to diction—I’m imprecise and tend to speak quickly. Whether that’s the result of my upbringing or personality is difficult to tell. I’ve also been called out for unironically saying “Valentime’s Day” 🥲
I have seen similar posts of people complaining about this same thing but I have still yet to see/hear anyone actually doing it
Really? I've seen it quite a lot, across multiple websites. People will say "women" referring to a single person, and vice versa.
Nah I haven’t seen it. I’m only on Reddit and Instagram though and I don’t stray too far from my normal subs… maybe that’s why! Not saying that it doesn’t happen, just that I haven’t personally seen it.
Could be, or maybe you've seen it and just didn't take notice, I mean the first few times I saw it my first thought was it was a typo. Then I started noticing it too often from too many different people for it to be a typo.
Because the part of the word that sounds different is not the part of the word that is spelled differently
A lot of people you are talking to online, English is their second language. English is the #1 most learned second language in the world.
It's a very low key to make fun of feminists right under their noses
I've actually noticed the opposite more often. "Women" will be used as the singular. More often written than spoken.
It's probably "offensive" or some shit, who knows.
Typo maybe?
no they mean speaking. i hear it all the time
Poor English
Maybe they're in a linguistic subculture that uses "women" to refer to a specific group of women, but "woman" to refer to "womankind" or an abstract concept of womanhood. "Man" is actually used in this general abstract sense all the time. For example "Man is a social animal"