How should the first "o" in "operator" be pronounced?

Question

I've always been taught that a vowel before a double consonant following another vowel should have a short sound. Conversely, there are many situations where a vowel preceding a single consonant and vowel gets a long sound. Short Sounds: Mississippi - All I's except the last get short sound Communication - First O gets short sound Oppose - First O gets short sound where second O gets long Long Sound: Ape - A gets long sound Popery - O gets long sound Oppose - First O gets short sound where second O gets long Yet, I hear people use a short O in "operator" when using the word. Is this the correct pronunciation?

Answer 1

Yes, in many varieties of North American English the "o" in operator is pronounced as /ɑ/. However, there are many different varieties of English, so there are many different ways to pronounce the word. One way is not more correct than the other.

Many rules given for describing English pronunciation have a lot of exceptions. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that stress has an impact. This may account for the difference in how "operator" and "oppose" are pronounced, for example. In "operator," the first syllable is stressed and we have the /ɑ/ vowel in that stressed syllable. However, in "oppose," the first syllable is unstressed. And reduced vowels, specifically the schwa sound, can show up in syllables that are unstressed. So "oppose" is pronounced with /ə/ at the beginning.

Answer 2

Good question!

This question is easier to answer using Linguistics than English Grammar.

What I'm about to say might frustrate or surprise certain people, but in human language, written language has absolutely no relationship with spoken language. In languages without phonetic writing systems, there are a lot of complex rules like "i before e except after c" or "don't use y after Labor Day," but these are all just elegant guesses at trying to account for logical linguistic rules that exist and evolve in the minds of native speakers.

What I mean by that is, I would suggest you don't focus too hard on English spelling conventions to justify or explain the pronunciation of a word. (For a fun example of this, google the nonsense word "ghoti hook.")

Moving on: The first vowel sound in "operator" is the same as the first vowel sound in "father." It's the same "aaaa" that you say when you go to the dentist.

In Linguistics, this vowel is called a low back unrounded vowel. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the way to write this vowel is ɑ.

Moving forward, I suggest you learn the International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA! It's extremely helpful. When you see a word whose pronunciation you're unsure of, you can simply look it up in any dictionary, and you'll see the word's pronunciation written next to it in IPA. This also works for pronouncing words in any language in the world.

I hope this helps!

Answer 3

The short o is the correct pronunciation of operator (pronounced like "ah").