POOT-yin/POOCH-in

[Kim & Rima McKinzey]

>...It would seem to me very unnatural
>to syllabify e.g., DUELING as DUE + LING, much less HOOTING as HOO + TING.
>Does this mean that BOOZER is BOO + ZER?

I'm sure Steve was referring to the pron field - not the boldfaced
entry field for the syllabication.  Of course the boldfaced entry
would be syllabified by other rules - including root and affix, free
forms, etc.  The pron field will be syllabified by
custom/style/individual dictionary editorial decisions, etc.

As to Tom Paikaday's question re the oo for the sound of poo, again
that's an editorial decision of the dictionary.  Since American
dictionaries tend not to use IPA symbols (for reasons discussed in
previous threads), we try to be as orthographic in our pronunciation
fields as possible.  Some dictionaries use ü (u with an umlaut), some
the oo with a macron.

These obviously can be gotten into with much more detail - but this
is a quick response.

Rima