A review of my dictionary shows that all of the multi words which begin with a long "O", including among others, obey, open, over, onerous, and Otolaryngologyst, seem to have the long 'o' as a separate syllable, and those where the o is short, (obliterate, ocular, oligarchy, omniciscient, opera, oven) seem to include the following consonant in the intial syllable.
Christopher wrote, in part
Hmm, I and my immediate family pronounce "obliterate" and "oligarchy" with long o sounds, and "onerous" with a short o. So much for generalisations with regional pronounciations, as I would have hyphenated those words incorrectly if I had followed your guide.
leading me to consult the dictionary in question, and determine that in that volume (an older volume, printed and intended for use in the U.S.) that all three words Christopher cites are given with a short "o" as the initial sound (rhymeing with "o" in "not"), and in all three instances the first syllable consists of the first two letters, thus "ob-literate", "ol-igarchy", and "on-erous".
However, this leads me to observe that there are variations in pronunciation between diverse places, and it may well be that what is proper pronunciation in one place, may not be correct in another.
ns
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