Klryz
Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iːseeɪsite / ɛbedæcat
ɑːfatherɒhot (UK)ɔːlawʊput
uːtooʌcupɜːbirdəabout
eɪdayaɪmyɔɪboyaʊnow
əʊ / oʊgo (UK / US)ɪəneareəhairʊətour

Consonants that look unusual

θthinðthisʃsheʒmeasure
tʃchurchdʒjudgeŋsingjyes

p b t d k g f v s z h m n l r w sound as in ordinary English spelling.

Marks

  • ˈ main stress, before the stressed syllable: /ˈwɔːtə/ water · ˌ lighter (secondary) stress: /ˌʌndəˈstænd/ understand
  • ː a long vowel · (r) an r said only in accents that pronounce it (most American, Scottish, Irish)

Common word endings

  • -s / -es (plurals; he/she form of verbs): /s/ after voiceless sounds (cats), /z/ after voiced (dogs), /ɪz/ after s, z, sh, ch, j sounds (buses, watches). Spelling: -es after s, x, z, ch, sh; consonant + y → -ies (city → cities).
  • -ed (past): /t/ after voiceless sounds (walked), /d/ after voiced (played), /ɪd/ after t or d (wanted). Spelling: love → loved, stop → stopped, carry → carried.
  • -ing: make → making, run → running, see → seeing.
  • Irregular: go, went, gone · be, was, been · see, saw, seen · man → men · child → children · mouse → mice.
  • Older (King James) forms: -eth = -s (he loveth = he loves) · -est with “thou” (thou lovest) · spake = spoke.

English Dictionary · 107,383 entries · Sources & licences

folks

UK /fəʊks/ · US /foʊks/ noun, proper noun

Also a form of folk

  1. noun The members of one's immediate family, especially one's parents “My folks visit us at Christmas.”
  2. noun (chiefly US) People in general; everybody or anybody. “Lots of folks like to travel during the holidays.”
  3. noun (US, slang, rare, southern Louisiana) The police.
  4. noun (California) Late 19th and early 20th century migrants to California from Iowa and other parts of the Midwestern United States.
  5. proper noun A surname.
  6. proper noun (Southern California, early 20th century) Transplants to Southern California from the Midwestern United States, especially Iowa.

Synonyms

folk common people

Etymology

Coined by California historian Kevin Starr.

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [Obs.]
  2. noun People in general, or a separate class of people; --generally used in the plural form, and often with a qualifying adjective; as, the old folks; poor folks. [Colloq.]

Etymology [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “folks”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details