What's Captain Kirk's dump stat?

[TheAuldGrump]

This is all beside the point - it is well known that Shatner hates cons....

The Auld Grump

 

[Brennin Magalus]

Get it? Con, Khan?

Gets funnier every time I hear it.

What noise does a dwarven cleric make when falling down stairs?
CLANGEDDIN CLANGeddin clangeddin...

LOL!

 

[DrunkonDuty]

>>>> So, you're pronouncing "Con" so it sounds like "cone"?

To an American ear quite possibly. In Australian English it's much closer to "Cone" than "Khan." BOth Cone and Khan have long vowel sounds while con has a short (rounded oh) one.
I too pronounce Khan to rhyme with Barn.
CAN't think of a rhyme for Con that would make clear my pronunciation.

 

[kenobi65]

>>>> So, you're pronouncing "Con" so it sounds like "cone"?

To an American ear quite possibly. In Australian English it's much closer to "Cone" than "Khan." BOth Cone and Khan have long vowel sounds while con has a short (rounded oh) one.
I too pronounce Khan to rhyme with Barn.
CAN't think of a rhyme for Con that would make clear my pronunciation.

At least, with my Upper Midwest accent:
- Khan and Con sound very close to each other. Con is far closer to an "ah" sound than an "oh" sound.
- Barn is, I suppose, not *entirely* different from Khan, but the R gets pronounced, and that makes a big difference.
- Cone and Con sound very different. Con has a short O, and Cone a long O.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

To paraphrase Churchill: Two countries divided by a common language.

OK he meant the US and UK but it can be extended to all the different countries with native ENglish speakers.

Kay lar vai as the French would say.

 

[Orius]

Preach it!!!!

mmm, caught the original series episode with Khan over thanksgiving weekend. mmmmm.......

Yeah the remastered episodes. Damn they look pretty good with some of the new effects. Didn't bother watching Space Seed again though, I've been putting the best episodes on a tape so I can watch them whenever I want, and Space Seed is one of them.

 

[jmucchiello]

As an Indian and native speaker of the language that Khan is from, I can tell you that Khan should sound fairly similar to barn.

Don't confuse things. Khan is pronounced as all the Star Trek actors pronounced it. That much should be a given (for the purposes of the joke).

Barn is so out of left field for me that I had to think about it. I suppose in the US a New England accept (typified as being from Boston) might approach the sound of Khan. But as someone (from the midwest) said above, the R really screws with the sound (except in said New England accents where the R is unvoiced) for the rest of American speech.

Searching for other similar schwas:

The o's in bottle and Con should be the same. But not as in boat. (And I've never heard an accent where it's pronounced boattle.)

The o also matches the a in father.

We need a phonetic alphabet, cos I'm not sure how anyone is pronouncing anything.

Unfortunately, the internationally recognized one: IPA isn't well represented on most computer keyboards and is perhaps too scholarly. So it doesn't help.

 

[mara]

Unfortunately, the internationally recognized one: IPA isn't well represented on most computer keyboards and is perhaps too scholarly. So it doesn't help.

However, for those wanting soundfiles, there is this: http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter1/vowels.html

 

[Lorthanoth]

And for a UK speaker (Southern Standard) the pun just doesn't work at all. I can't even begin to think of a vowel sound to represent how I say Con. I pronounce Khan like anyone would.

 

[Fifth Element]

The o's in bottle and Con should be the same. But not as in boat. (And I've never heard an accent where it's pronounced boattle.)

The o also matches the a in father.

The a in father is not a schwa (for me, anyway). The o does not match the sound in father.