Why are you changing ab to ap in pronunciations (absolute, absence, etc.)? Equinox ◑ 21:15, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Trust me, because it's the right thing, B is a voiced sound, S is unvoiced, they can't stand together, see that even in Latin words with ABS are pronounced "aps", like absentia, it's just the right thing, in English people normally pronounce with the "PS", except words normally pronounce with /bz/ as absolve, which is the common pronunciation,but it's just stupid keeping the wrong pronunciation, it's impossible pronouncing /bs/, see French language which as /apsolu/ for absolu, apsaNs for absence etc, in Spanish is apsolutismo for absolutismo, trust me it's the right thing, and as a dictionary we've to keep foreigner informed about this ;) Bye
It's impossible to pronounce an unvoiced sound with a voiced sound, it's a rule existing on all languages existing on Earth, try to pronounce "disgust", you'll never end up with dissgust, but either diskust or dizgust, as /s/ is unvoiced and it has to be close to an unvoiced one (in this case /k/), and the other way round as for /z/ and /g/... I know you guys are convinced about your theory as it's in all dictionaries, but it's just not fair.. Try at least to put the 2 possibles combinations for words like absolute, /bz/ and /ps/, it's the right thing to do, if even Latin has done it there must be a real reason no? C'mon.. Spanish French Italian Latin German (which as an enormous amount of these assimilation exceptions in pronunciation including words starting with ABS pronounced /aps/ ).. Sad that Oxford Dictiionary has not that, they've to update this thing, I hope some English speaker will get what I'm saying, it's not just claiming, it's helping foreigner speakers, I know a lot of them who have problems with these tricky pronunciations Bye ;)