Editing 2819: Pronunciation

Pronunciation guides are used in many languages to indicate the commonly accepted way to translate a written word into sound. This can be particularly important in the English language, where the pronunciation of individual letters and of combinations of letters can vary broadly, and there are very few rules that can be applied consistently. As a result, the 'correct' pronunciation of any given word is determined by common usage, and therefore can only be learned either by exposure or by memorizing them from guides. Some guides use the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet}}, but the average person is not familiar with those characters, so most guides written for laypeople instead {{wiktionary|Appendix:English pronunciation|reference familiar words}} that feature the phonemes. This, of course, presumes that the reader is familiar with the pronunciation of ''those'' words, but the words should be chosen so that a) they're commonly known b) there is only one common pronunciation and c) the pronunciation doesn't vary much between regional accents.  

In this strip, though, the selected guide-words are deliberately chosen to be confusing. They are {{w|Heteronym (linguistics)|heteronym}}s – spellings that are used for multiple words which are pronounced in very different ways. Moreover for most of them it is the less common homograph which matches the pronunciation in "Tuesday". In other words, how the reader chooses to pronounce each guide-word determines what pronunciation of "Tuesday" they end up with.