A few weeks ago I received a Christmas card with a sleeve that said “TOGETHER” in stylized capital letters, as you can see in this photo. I’ve known the word “together” for at least 35 years, but only now have I realized that if you read the three syllables separately, you get the phrase “to get her.”
Why did it take me so many years to figure that out? Why didn’t any of you tell me this before ;-)? I mean, it’s fascinating, isn’t it? Just think of all the puns you can make up about it. For example, you can say, “Let’s try to get her together,” or even “let’s try to get her together together”, etc…
Very good, now trying to think of other compound words. Can only think of, so me one or so me where - not very good . You big brains @Torsten@NearlyNapping must be able to come up with better
I never told you because I never saw it. In fact I still can’t “see” it unless the letters are physically separated. We learn that “t” and “h” always go together.
I understand that it is different in German. I learned that the town of Rothenburg does not have the “th” sound but separate “t” and “h” sounds. Perhaps that helped you to see it when you had to decode the stylized letters.
As you know, we are ze Germans, always ze good guys since 1945. We don’t have ze “th” sound in our language and can’t therefore pronounce it no matter how hard we try.
Anyway this reminds me of an Indian guy I knew years ago. One day we were talking and somehow the US trucking company named “Schneider” came up. He must have tried five times to pronounce the ‘schn’ sound and just couldn’t get it. He was trying sooooo hard and getting frustrated. He could sometimes get the ‘sch’ but couldn’t get the ‘n’ in one syllable.
Schneider and Schnider are common names in the US so we can say it even though English doesn’t have that sound. I didn’t let it show but I was smiling inside. He just tried so hard it was cute.
As foreign learners of English, we try to look for the possibly familiar words within a new word. So, I’m pretty aware of it. This helps us learn the spelling more quickly.
Another phrase that I can recall from my college days is ‘Who resolves’ >>> ‘Whore solves’! (No offence meant, please)
I pronounce it more like an A or U. I think that would be mʌɪ. I pronounce it like the city Omaha, but I doubt if many people know how that’s pronounced.
mʌɪ is easier to pronounce when followed by the hard C. It slides into the C.
I’m curious how a Greek would pronounce it. They might pronounce it ‘me’. I was told they pronounce the Greek letter pi that way ( pee ).
But it becomes easier when it is the first syllable.
By the way, the word within OMICRON is MICRON which, as we know, is pronounced with an initial sound of mʌɪ. Which, I think, is why the pronunciation is like ‘OMYCRON’ rather than ‘OMICRON’.
In fact, it is being heard used in both the ways as in the case of DIRECTION and FINANCE.
Let’s see what @Alan and @Torsten have to say.
. You big brains 
(No offence meant, please)