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Test: Pronunciation of “e-mail”, other “e” prefixed words and variations

Last updated: 29 January 2007

Notes

This test aims to discover how different screen readers cope with these newfangled Internet words, like “e-mail”. In general, screen readers handle the word “e-mail” and its variations well, as it is such a common word these days. However, as more words are being subjected to “Webification”, perhaps it is worth knowing how screen readers tend to handle words that have a prefix.

Tests

  1. e-mail
  2. email
  3. e mail
  4. “e-mail”
  5. “email”
  6. “e mail”
  7. e-marketing
  8. emarketing
  9. e marketing
  10. e-newsletter
  11. enewsletter
  12. e newsletter

Results

The test cases above were spoken by screen readers in the following ways.

JAWS 8

All variations of “e-mail” are read pretty much the same way, as “ee-meyl”.

  1. ee-meyl
  2. ee-meyl
  3. ee-meyl
  4. kwoht-ee-meyl-kwoht
  5. kwoht-ee-meyl-kwoht
  6. kwoht-ee-meyl-kwoht
  7. ee-dash-mahr-ki-ting
  8. eh-mahr-ki-ting (yuck!)
  9. ee-mahr-ki-ting
  10. ee-dash-nooz-let-er
  11. eh-nooz-let-er (eugh!)
  12. ee-nooz-let-er

The variations with the standalone “e” is probably pronounced in the most appropriate way, but just looks wrong. Personally, I think adding the hyphen looks and sounds better.