I'm used to hearing it as (A) but I've heard both.
TheWinterSnow, plenty of other words ending in 'ity' (conformity, monstrosity, et cetera) have a pronunciation of 'i' that sounds more like 'uh' with some accents. Also, be careful with who you call an 'idtiot'.
Jeff
I was going off of phonetics becuase as far as I am concerned, if you speak any language that uses the overall universal phonetic alphabet, there are certain sounds that vowles make, and don't make, last time I checked, phonetically, "i" can never be pronouced "uh" and therefor, you can establish that pronoucning "i" as "uh" is actaully an accent, or an alteration in the dynamic of spoken word. All I was trying to say was that IMO, accents are deviations of how letters (specificlaly vowels) are normally spoken and are therefore wrong.
Now I know this will come to bite me, but I will explain more, I never said that Americans or brithish etc etc, group speaks wrong or right Engligh. Being american I don;t give a fuck how people say certain words, if ther is an accent to any of them (again, a deviation of the phonectic pronunciations) than it was said wrong. Doens't matter which country you live in, English is English and there are no different ways of speaking it, phonetics are what dictate how we are supposed to say certain vowels and they have been around for a long time, actaully longer than our modern engligh language. They have not changed.
Getting back on track every english speaking nation says certain words wrong, and that is one thing that really bugs the crap out of me. I try to base all the words that I speak based on how they are supposed to be spoken as instructed by phonetics. We did this in High School my freshman year, can't really remember too mcuh of it since that was awhile ago, but it was then that I realized nobody including Americans can speak correctly. While most American speak more acuratly in teh phonetical sense, you have areas such as the South, and NEw England that really Slaughter some words and I sometime have a hard time deciphering most of the heavey accents that come from that area.
Whats ironic enough is that I have heard professors in languages (particularly english) wherer there first language is not engligh, its funny that they speak in a way that if they were to come to most areas in America, most would not tell that they were from another country, this even includes the British as well. Its really intersting that these professors actaully speak all the languages they can so fluidly and so accurately, they really do speak the language of that culture, and what is written out phonetically, and when they speak English, doens't matter wherer they are from, most of them sound virtually like Americans.
I am not saying Americans speak anything close to a perfect english thats for sure, far from the truth. Americans are guilty of slaughtering many words, but the biggest differece between say the Brithsh/Aussies/South Africans and Americans is that fthe first group has a tendancy of replacing common vowles with diphthongs and even sometimes replacing one vowel with more than one diphthong, like the word "mate", which they pronouce "muoit", you just replaced an "a" for three vowels which sound no where close to any possible sounds that could be made by the letter "a". Most of the vowles however are replaced with back of the throat attack and use scandanavian vowles which do not exist in Enlgish.
our stnadard phonetics actually are effect for Engligh, Spanish, French, the numerous Scandanavian Languages, Greek and Latin, which gave way to the greek standardization of the phonetic library shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Anyone who thinks I am being a pompass asshole should check out the IPA and read up, I didn't make anything up, my basic black anwhite view of it is that if you have an accent, that means you deviated fromt he correct pronunciation posted the IPA's phonestic alphabet , which means that your said the word wrong. Some would say that the way we pronouce words changes form cultrues and that every way is the right way, well in the case of grammar vs phonetics, saying muoit for "mate" is just the same as saying "I don't got no", if there are different ways to rpounce words outside the standard rules of phonestics, you might as well also argue that ebonics are gramatically correct because thats a different cultures way of speaking. Either way you slice it, its wrong.
Whats really cool about understanding phonetics is that once you have the concept down, and understnad how you move your mouth to make certain sounds and when to identify those patters in words, you will find it easy to pronounce words and phrases in other languages with minimal difficulty and people who do not understand it usually stay in the slum of lazy comfort they have gotten used to with their primary language that they speak the new one so akwardly I feel embarrased for them, just listen to an american try to speak spanish, its one of the funniset things you can experience, becuase most americans, as well as anyone who speaks engligh gets int hese lazy ruts and when they go to learn a new language that utilizes the sounds that they learned to omit, since they don;t use their muscles in that way they find it almost impossible to say the words correctly. Usually thats a good sign that individual has no clue how the hell to talk.
Anyway long rant, probably one of the things that bugs me almost as much as rude/arrogant people, its not hard to talk correclty and anyone could do it if they understood the art of speaking, since speaking really is an unapreciative art, hence some fo the realy bad accents. this wasn't directed to anyone in particularly, jeff juse brought up a point that lead me to rant.
I in no way speak perfect Enlgih since no one really could, however, the idea is to do as best as you can and be aware of your faults and try to correct them, people ususually respect you and theink you are smarter than you are, as you speak more proper.
they pronounce "in the area of" as "in the areaRof" and "that ideaRis good" (links two vowels). also: umbrella-r-organization, a milieu-r-in which, grandpa-r-is ill, law-r-and order, etc.
