This is probably a stupid question, but my native language is not
English, so please bear with me.

How do you pronounce "Perl"? Does it sound like "pearl" , or is the "e"
the same as the "e" in "help"?

Thanks,
Jan Pieter Kunst.-

(some manuals alude to the legend that perl used to be spelled "pearl",
also, but that Larry didn't want to type all 4 characters...)

Jan> Hello all,
Jan> This is probably a stupid question, but my native language is not
Jan> English, so please bear with me.

Jan> How do you pronounce "Perl"? Does it sound like "pearl" , or is the "e"
Jan> the same as the "e" in "help"?

Larry says it like "pearl".  The other one would sound to me like
"peril", which amazingly is what FrameMaker always wants to
spell-correct it as until I tell it "no". :)

JP

So for them, "peril" is quite acceptable for "perl".

Is this on-topic? :-)

     $pronunciation =~ s/([lmnr])([lmnr])/$1u$2/g;

almost works, except for double consonants, which don't require the
extra vowel sound.  

Is there a way to write the substitution on one line so that it will
exclude double consonants?

  SO> Let me ask a question...

  SO>      $pronunciation =~ s/([lmnr])([lmnr])/$1u$2/g;

  SO> almost works, except for double consonants, which don't require the
  SO> extra vowel sound.  

  SO> Is there a way to write the substitution on one line so that it will
  SO> exclude double consonants?

perl -pe 's/([lmnr])(?!\1)([lmnr])/$1u$2/g'

this fails when a double consonant is followed by another of those
consonants. but does 'rrm' or 'llr' actually occur?

uri

What about "solemn"?  Should it be pronounced like the name of one of
the kings of Israel?  I could make a similar comment about "hymn".  But
then there is also "damnation", the first four letters of which are
pronounced differently than the word "damn".  Do Scottish speakers add
a vowel if the syllable boundary falls between the two consonants?

Of course, you really have to know whether the consonants are actually
both pronounced, and whether the letters are the same is only a
heuristic for that.  The presence of the letters "l", "m", "n", and "r"
in the spelling of a word doesn't necessarily even imply that the
corresponding consonants exist in the pronunciation of the word.  The
only example I can think of right now is "could", but it feels like
there should be an example with "r" in it as well (since "r" and "l"
are closely related.)

Also, maybe you should check for "ng" followed by any of those four
letters, since in English sometimes "ng" stands for a consonant that's
sort of like "n" but with a different (further back) part of the tongue
touching the roof of the mouth.  I don't know you about you, but I
don't always actually make a real "g" sound when saying "hangman",
"Langley", or "ringmaster".

        $pronunciation =~ s/([lmnr])(?!\1)([lmnr])/$1u$2/g;

That's the first time I've ever really used a zero-width negative
lookahead assertion, despite the fact that I remember being one of
the ones suggesting zero-width lookahead assertions when Larry was
thinking up ideas of what to include in Perl 5 back in 1994.  Hey, it
only took me about 7.5 years to actually get around to using it...

  - Logan
--
"In order to be prepared to hope in what does not deceive,
 we must first lose hope in everything that deceives."

        $ perl -ne 'print if /([lmnr])\1[lmnr]/i' /usr/dict/words | fmt
        ballroom bellman bellmen hallmark hillman hillmen Pullman Ullman
        $

But I think these are all OK, because the "ll" in each case is
pronounced like a single "l", so maybe turning "ballroom" into
"balluroom" is the desired effect.  (Unless what I said in another
post about syllable breaks is true.)

Also, just for fun:

        $ perl -ne 'print if /[lmnr]([lmnr])\1/i' /usr/dict/words | fmt
        filmmake
        $

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "filmmake".  I guess this is
the /usr/dict/words way of recognizing "filmmaker".

  - Logan
--
"In order to be prepared to hope in what does not deceive,
 we must first lose hope in everything that deceives."