How the heck do you pronounce Sweetone anyways? I’ve always thought it was “Sweet tone” but one never knows…
Robin
It’s a play on words, as it could be interpreted either way, but it’s generally pronounced Sweet Tone, or maybe Sweet Own.
I say “sweet tone”. Like that.
And Mellow D is also a play on “melody”.
The Crystal People told me.
I usually just say “Swee-Tone”.
How do you indicate in written text that a spoken consonant is “swallowed” (i.e., the “t” on “Sweet” is spoken by simply cutting off the air flow in the throat)? 
A glottal stop?
Just like that. 
That’s it! Thanks! And, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop, it’s indicated by a “?”. So, I say it “Swee?tone”. 
I don’t do a glottal stop.
But I pronounce most words “incorrectly”, anyway.
There was a DJ in Baltimore who used to refer to the 'N Sync singer as
Joey “Fat one.”
It’s only spelled Sweetone. It’s actually pronounced “luxury yaught”.
“Fanshaw” 
(Actually the correct pronunciation of “Featherstone-Haugh”, I believe) 
Rats… all this time I’ve thought that was “fuff.” 
You know, spelling bees don’t occur in the majority of languages in the world because they’re spelled logically.
Not English.
Or French, or (as near as I can tell) Gaelic.
Now Spanish - that’s a language with sensible spelling. I’m told that Hungarian is another. What little I know of Italian seems to put it in this camp, too.
Any other entries on the hard to spell side of the ledger?
Interestingly enough, I watched the last 10 contestants of a US national spelling bee recently. Most of them were able to spell words correctly after asking the judges the “language of origin”.
I don’t think it’s so much that english doesn’t spell things logically. I think it’s more because English is really a mish-mash of words from every language on the globe, and each of THEM has different spelling rules for the same types of sounds.
For example consider the homynyms “their” and “there” (word origins from Mirriam Websters)
Their, from Old Norse theirra
There, from Old English th[AE]r
Same sounds, different origins, thus different spelling roots. This is especially evident when you compare words with greek origins vs words with arabic origins, for instance.
An example I’ve seen a lot is though/through/cough…all spelled the same with very different sounds. I know there are more words spelled that way, but I’ve been awake forever…
That’s why we should all pick one language and just go with it. I choose that African bush language that’s mad up of lots of clicks and humming noises.
Korean is another language with an absolutely phonetic alphabet. Namely because it was designed to be that way.
Ron
So I’ve heard.
I travel to Korea often enough that I’ve given serious though to learning the alphabet (Hangul, I think?) even if I don’t learn the language, just so I can read the street signs.
If I do so, I’ve got a much better chance of pronouncing them correctly than the Gaelic signs in Ireland.
Hangul is nearly phonetic. A couple symbols can stand for more than one sound, though.
Don’t the Irish signs in Ireland also have English on them?
In a thousand years, I suspect (and fear) the entire world will probably speak a weird mish-mash language based on English but with influences from everything.