Why is 'petty' not pronounced like 'pretty' without an 'r'?
It's time to score petty points on the internet at the BBC's expense! Are you ready? Then let's go!
Nagorno-Karabakh is a long-disputed region lying between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and tensions have erupted, as both sides blame the other for starting recent fighting. It's like a school playground; he said, she said
, but with more blood.
But this is where the petty points come into it:
The BBC's map identifies Armenian-controlled territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh
, but that suggests that the region is an enclave. It is not. Unless I'm reading things wrong, Nagano-Karabakh has clear, direct borders with Azerbaijan to the north and east, the former being sizeable. That is not to say that parts of Nagorno-Karabakh are not enclaves; they are.
And that's it. Petty points won, yay me!
Perhaps scoring petty points against BBC journalists is not unlike stealing confectionary from little children; just being mean towards the vulnerable. I shall try to be a better person.
To answer the question posed in the title, clearly 'petty' cannot be pronounced /ˈpɪti/, like 'pretty' without an 'r', because then it would be pity
. But, more to the point, why is 'pretty' not pronounced /ˈprɛti/, like 'petty' with an 'r'?