The Grapes of Ire

The title of this post is inspired by John Steinbeck’s book The Grapes of Wrath. Ire is a synonym of wrath, which means anger. But here, I’m not referring to anger but about the sour-grapes* look on people’s faces when they hear you mispronounce ire.

Often, non-native speakers pronounce ire like ear, ear-ay or eye-ray when in fact it should be pronounced like eye-er. 

In general, a silent E at the end of a word makes the vowel sound on the other side of the consonant long (as the vowel is pronounced in the alphabet). For example: 
1) the sound of I in spin changes in spine. 
2) the sound of A in bar changes in bare. 

But instead of being silent, similar to the British spelling of centre (3), we pronounce the E as if it were written before the R, like it is written in the American center (3), so ire has two syllables.

For example, we don’t pronounce hire like hear, but like higher.

Listen to these -ire words below in the recording further below.

4) ire, attire, dire, fire, hire, mire, sire, spire, tire, wire

The sound of -ire doesn't change even after adding –ed or –ing at the end.

5) fired, hired, tired, wired

6) firing, hiring, tiring, wiring

* agrio