Oven or Oven?

cdd · Wed 17 Jun, 2009 02.06

Right time for some threadjacking though at the risk of snubbing the admin I might say it's an improvement.

I have a new oven. It is nice because it has an oven and a microwave built in. This is all very well but it pisses me off in two ways.

Firstly, you can't set the oven temperature except in 25 degree increments. EVERYTHING I cook demands to be cooked at 190 degrees, and yet I am forced to go for 200. Same problem for the timer, which only goes on 15 second increments.

Secondly, the microwave part lets you set the wattage to cook at. This is all very well, but it doesn't actaully reduce the power at all. It simply cooks at max power and turns off the microwaving element every x seconds, which is of course not the same as cooking at a lower wattage.

Neither of these things should matter too much but I'm a real OCD type and these things bug the hell out of me.

Oh, Uven by the way. Like any southener!

rob · Wed 17 Jun, 2009 06.16

Muff over here as well.

Mr Q · Wed 17 Jun, 2009 09.55

Uh-ven. I've never heard anyone say Oh-ven - but then we do have our own bizarre (and often grating, at least to my ears) pronunciations over here too.

rts · Wed 17 Jun, 2009 10.12

Alexia · Wed 17 Jun, 2009 10.43

Cooker.

Gavin Scott · Wed 17 Jun, 2009 11.21

Someone said oh-ven on Big Brother last night. I might add that's the only few seconds I watched of it.

A girl I worked with called it an oh-ven. When I questioned her about she said, "you don't say uh-veries, its oh-veries and oh-ven".

I was left knowing not what to say to that.

So I wondered what the proportion is who say this variance.

Nick Harvey · Wed 17 Jun, 2009 11.30

Must confess that my mind went wandering off in the direction of Oban when I first saw the thread.

Especially given that the question was coming from a Scots Scott (okay with a bit of double-Dutch mingled in there somewhere).

I wonder how they pronounce oven in Oban, but more importantly, what logic do they use to justify their choice?

I feel an edition of Comment coming on!

marksi · Wed 17 Jun, 2009 11.45

It's more like the "of" as in "I'd like a bar of chocolate". Rounder than "uv", but not an "o" sound either.

Gavin Scott · Wed 17 Jun, 2009 12.39

marksi wrote:It's more like the "of" as in "I'd like a bar of chocolate". Rounder than "uv", but not an "o" sound either.

A close-mid central rounded vowel?

Why didn't you say so?

Oh and Nick, I would be chuffed to bits to think I had inspired a topic for comment. I'm already tickled by the idea that a BBC announcer has checked with the pronunciation unit

timgraham · Wed 17 Jun, 2009 14.01

Mr Q wrote:Uh-ven. I've never heard anyone say Oh-ven - but then we do have our own bizarre (and often grating, at least to my ears) pronunciations over here too.

That doesn't make it right!

Remember that brits also have a habit of saying "yoghurt" to rhyme the first bit with jog, and pasta to rhyme with mass. Which is clearly just wrong (Ben O'Donoghue made a point of this if anyone ever watched that marvelous cooking show The Best).

Dr Lobster* · Wed 17 Jun, 2009 18.41

"uvan" here in norfolk