NICU, For Dominic Edit #2.1

[ellajam]

Cambridge and Oxford are going like this:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dicti...glish/fuss fʌs
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dicti...ish/abacus ˈæb·ə·kəs

http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.co...ish/fuss_2 fʌs
http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.co...ish/abacus ˈæbəkəs

Fuss has a, er, higher sounding uh than abacus right there (not a linguist, so I can't really say what the term is for that. But it's still easy to learn). They're not that different, but they're still different. Note that the distinction, at least according to Oxford, still persists in American English. And, well, no, I'm not British, nor have I even actually met anyone from the Commonwealth, but I'm not American either.
Anyway, this, I concede, is a pretty pedantic point, but it really is irksome to have just that little fault with the rhyme, if, at least, a perfect rhyme is what this is going for. I really do suggest changing that if you wanna go all the way, since, whether the distinction truly exists or not, a lot of people are inevitably going to be bothered by this.

And a bit of a tangent: Shakespeare's also pretty bothersome whenever he's going for rhymes, but that's because his mode of pronunciation back then was very different from how he pronounces words now. Found out about how they roughly pronounced stuff through this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s

Sorry, I missed this, river. I agree, it's best just to move the word into another spot rather than leave its debatable pronunciation where it is. Thanks for the links, and your time.

I loved the abacus, since it refers to the level of the mathematics you are comfortable with, when faced with machines with numbers and graphs that you can't read.   i read it like you wanted me to, although i put stress on the ABacus---it still works from me.

Thanks, bena, I have no plans to lose the abacus, just looking to move it. Mildly fuss wasn't stellar either.