US and UK English [was: Non-rhotic speech]
Larry Trask
access newsgroups from my computer at work. At present, I also can't
do it through my home computer, which is linked to my work computer in
a manner which is usually convenient. Since my university is now in
the middle of a huge restructuring, which will eliminate the School I
now work in, and since I have to move offices next week, there is
little point in trying to deal with any of this mess until some of the
dust has settled. Meanwhile, my only way into sci.lang, which I've
been trying to get into for a long time, is my wife's PC (and I'm a
Mac person).
A consequence of this mess is that I am woefully behind on a number of
threads I would have liked to be involved in. I'm reading through
some of the threads, and I've discovered that somebody quoted me from
somewhere -- perhaps from Ask-a-Linguist -- on the divergence between
British and American pronunciation. In particular, I said that the
pronunciation of southern England has changed more since the
settlement of North America than has General American speech. Let my
try to document this statement.
Changes in General American:
1. Tapping (US "flapping") of medial /t/ and /d/, as in 'city'.
(But this can now be heard in Britain and elsewhere.)
2. Unrounding and fronting of the 'pot' vowel, so that words like
'pot' and 'not' have the 'father' vowel.
3. Reduction of the unstressed 'kit' vowel to schwa, so that 'Latin'
rhymes with 'batten'.
That's about it. We might consider adding one more, but this fourth
one is still far from general, and is largely confined to the west:
4. Merger of the vowels of 'cot' and 'caught'.
This used to be a good way to spot a Canadian, but no longer.
Changes in the south of England:
1. Non-rhoticity, so that /r/ is lost everywhere except before a
vowel.
2. Bath-broadening, so that words like 'bath', 'grass' and 'after'
have the 'father' vowel.
3. Extensive loss of unstressed syllables, so that, for example,
'police' and 'collapse' are one syllable, while 'library' and
'temporary' are two syllables.
A handful of these can be heard in the US, but the difference is
vast.
4. Spelling pronunciations:
4a: Words like 'sterile', 'missile' and 'fertile' pronounced like
'mile'.
4b: Words like 'Sunday' and 'Tuesday' pronounced with stressed
'day'.
4c: Others: 'herb' with /h/, 'July' as 'joo-LYE',...
5. Raising of the 'law' vowel, so that 'caught' sounds rather like
'coat'.
6. Fronting of the 'low' diphthong, so that 'coat' sounds rather like
'Kate'.
7. Loss of the contrast between pairs like 'moor' and 'more'.
(Not unknown in the US, but far from general there.)
There's more, but this'll do for now.
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
Larry Trask
intrusive /r/.
A certain American TV show is called by the people on Britain's
Channel 5 "Lore and Order" -- or, more accurately, "Lore and Awdah",
since the only /r/ is the one in the first word.
The English squash player Lisa Opie is called by TV commentators here
"Lisa Ropie". And the sports commentators talk about an American
football team called the "Philadelphia Regals".
This sort of thing can even happen inside a word. For example,
'drawing' comes out as "droring". This happens because 'roar' rhymes
with 'draw', and 'roaring' has an /r/ in the middle, so 'drawing' gets
one too, by analogy.
Shakespeare would be mystified by the modern pronunciation of the
south of England. But, of course, most people in England think that
they speak just like Shakespeare, and that all the trans-Atlantic
differences are the fault of the Americans. ;-)
> Larry Trask
> R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
Mark Barratt
Something which quite surprised me in the list of changes that have
occurred in southern UK English:
> 4a: Words like 'sterile', 'missile' and 'fertile' pronounced like
> 'mile'.
I was aware that Merkins pronounce these with a schwa, but I'm a
little surprised by your implication that they were once pronounced
that way here. According to the COED, 'sterile' and 'fertile' came to
us from medieval French, where they would presumably have rhymed with
"eel", and 'missile' comes directly from Latin which (I guess, I'm no
Latin scholar) would have a similar pronunciation. Is there some
record of the pronunciation of these words? Does Shakespeare rhyme
'fertile' with 'cattle', or something?
I would have expected these to belong in the list of changes to
American speech, related to this one:
> 3. Reduction of the unstressed 'kit' vowel to schwa, so that 'Latin'
> rhymes with 'batten'.
Yours in curiosity,
Mark Barratt
wv8....@virgin.net
http://freespace.virgin.net/wv8.mark
Janet Lock
"Mark Barratt" <wv8....@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:8f30741a.03080...@posting.google.com...
Oh, there's no doubt about this. The first edition of the Oxford English
Dictionary, compiled in Britain in the late 19th century, gives the US-style
pronunciation for every one of these words. For a few of them, but not for
most of them, the modern British pronunciation is given as a second choice.
This shows that the American-style pronunciations were formerly the norm in
Britain, and that the new spelling pronunciations were just beginning to be
heard in British speech in the late 19th century, but were not yet
considered the norm.
Just one minor qualification: in line with the point about 'Latin', OED 1's
recommended pronunciations had the unstressed 'kit' vowel in the second
syllable, rather than schwa.
These days, it's not so easy to find a copy of OED 1. But, if you can find
a copy, it's a mine of surprises. For example, the editors insist on the
now US spelling 'ax', and they inveigh against the British tendency to write
'axe' as "contrary to history, precedent and logic". Wonderful stuff for
those Brits who are inclined to see every trans-Atlantic difference as a
Yankee corruption.
By the way, I trust you all realize that the great English chemist Humphry
Davy named that metal 'aluminum', and that British 'aluminium' results from
some capricious British tinkering with the language. ;-)
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
Brian M. Scott
<janet...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>"Mark Barratt" <wv8....@virgin.net> wrote in message
>news:8f30741a.03080...@posting.google.com...
>> R.L....@sussex.ac.uk (Larry Trask) wrote in message
>news:<519d8f2c.03080...@posting.google.com>...
>> Something which quite surprised me in the list of changes that have
>> occurred in southern UK English:
>> > 4a: Words like 'sterile', 'missile' and 'fertile' pronounced like
>> > 'mile'.
>> I was aware that Merkins pronounce these with a schwa, but I'm a
>> little surprised by your implication that they were once pronounced
>> that way here. According to the COED, 'sterile' and 'fertile' came to
>> us from medieval French, where they would presumably have rhymed with
>> "eel", and 'missile' comes directly from Latin which (I guess, I'm no
>> Latin scholar) would have a similar pronunciation. Is there some
>> record of the pronunciation of these words? Does Shakespeare rhyme
>> 'fertile' with 'cattle', or something?
[...]
>Oh, there's no doubt about this. The first edition of the Oxford English
>Dictionary, compiled in Britain in the late 19th century, gives the US-style
>pronunciation for every one of these words. For a few of them, but not for
>most of them, the modern British pronunciation is given as a second choice.
One can also look at some of the variant spellings: 15th and 16th
c. <fertyl(l)> and 17th and 18th c. <fertil(l)>, for instance,
are pretty clear pointers.
[...]
Brian
Peter T. Daniels
> > > 3. Reduction of the unstressed 'kit' vowel to schwa, so that 'Latin'
> > > rhymes with 'batten'.
>
> Oh, there's no doubt about this. The first edition of the Oxford English
> Dictionary, compiled in Britain in the late 19th century, gives the US-style
> pronunciation for every one of these words. For a few of them, but not for
> most of them, the modern British pronunciation is given as a second choice.
>
> This shows that the American-style pronunciations were formerly the norm in
> Britain, and that the new spelling pronunciations were just beginning to be
> heard in British speech in the late 19th century, but were not yet
> considered the norm.
>
> Just one minor qualification: in line with the point about 'Latin', OED 1's
> recommended pronunciations had the unstressed 'kit' vowel in the second
> syllable, rather than schwa.
>
> These days, it's not so easy to find a copy of OED 1. But, if you can find
> a copy, it's a mine of surprises.
The US is flooded with the Compact Edition, since the Book-of-the-Month
Club practically gave it away a few decades ago (nearly bankrupting OUP
in the process).
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Torsten Poulin
>> By the way, I trust you all realize that the great English chemist
>> Humphry Davy named that metal 'aluminum', and that British 'aluminium'
>> results from some capricious British tinkering with the language. ;-)
> How do you explain then that almost all European languages have
> "aluminium". Only American is different.
Maybe because Humphry Davy actually proposed "aluminium" to
begin with (in 1807), but later changed his mind? The "-ium"
spelling was adopted by IUPAC to conform with the spelling of
other elements.
--
Torsten
Aaron J. Dinkin
> Changes in General American:
>
> 1. Tapping (US "flapping") of medial /t/ and /d/, as in 'city'.
>
> (But this can now be heard in Britain and elsewhere.)
>
> 2. Unrounding and fronting of the 'pot' vowel, so that words like
> 'pot' and 'not' have the 'father' vowel.
>
> 3. Reduction of the unstressed 'kit' vowel to schwa, so that 'Latin'
> rhymes with 'batten'.
4. "Loss"-tensing: mutation of <o> to the "caught" vowel before
unvoiced fricatives(?) in word like "loss", "cloth".
5. /t/-glottalization before unstressed /n/: "button" ['bV?n-].
6. Raising and diphthongization of /&/ before nasals: "man" [me@n],
"clam" [kle@m].
Others?
> 4. Spelling pronunciations:
>
> 4b: Words like 'Sunday' and 'Tuesday' pronounced with stressed
> 'day'.
Also very common in the US.
> 7. Loss of the contrast between pairs like 'moor' and 'more'.
>
> (Not unknown in the US, but far from general there.)
Nearly universal in the US.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Larry Trask
[quoting]
> > How do you explain then that almost all European languages have
> > "aluminium". Only American is different.
>
> Maybe because Humphry Davy actually proposed "aluminium" to
> begin with (in 1807), but later changed his mind? The "-ium"
> spelling was adopted by IUPAC to conform with the spelling of
> other elements.
I don't think so. I'm writing without my references handy, but I
believe that Davy's first proposal was not 'aluminium' at all, but
rather the very different 'alumium'. But he was persuaded to think
again, and so, observing that the metal had been extracted from a
substance called 'alumina' (the oxide of the metal), he changed the
ending to the metallic '-um', producing 'aluminum'. And this was the
form that crossed the Atlantic, before anyone had come up with
'aluminium'.
Some years later, another British chemist, whose name escapes me,
proposed a change to 'aluminium', on the grounds that names of metals
"ought" to end in
'-ium', and he managed to persuade Britons that the change was a good
idea.
In the States, the American Chemical Society noted that the Brits had
changed the name of the metal, and it decided it had better follow
suit. (We took British English oh-so-seriously in those days.) But
nobody in the States paid the slightest attention. Already used to
Davy's earlier choice, Americans kept on calling the stuff 'aluminum'.
The USA thus exhibited an odd kind of chemical diglossia for many
years, with the Society insisting on 'aluminium' and everybody else
using 'aluminum'.
Finally, in 1925, the Society carried out what we would now call a
"reality check". Realizing that nobody was paying any attention to
its decision, the Society caved in and changed its official form back
to 'aluminum'.
It was only this one metal whose name the Brits tinkered with. They
never got round to fiddling with 'platinum' or 'molybdenum' or
'tantalum'.
By the way, this notion that metal names ought to end in '-ium' is a
curious one. Note all those splendid Latin metal names which have
provided us with our chemical symbols but which were never lucky
enough to make it into English: <ferrum>, <cuprum>, <aurum>,
<argentum>, <hydrargyrum>, <stannum>, <plumbum>, ... Not an 'ium'in
sight.
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
Larry Trask
[adding to my list of US changes in pronunciation]
> 4. "Loss"-tensing: mutation of <o> to the "caught" vowel before
> unvoiced fricatives(?) in word like "loss", "cloth".
Fair enough, though I could readily combine this with my point about
the loss of the 'pot' vowel. In most cases the 'pot' vowel merged
with the 'father' vowel, but in some circumstances it merged with the
'caught' vowel. (And it occasionally merged with the 'cut' vowel, as
in 'what'.)
> 5. /t/-glottalization before unstressed /n/: "button" ['bV?n-].
Also very frequent in Britain. Glottalization of /t/ -- and also of
/p/ and /k/ -- in certain positions is pervasive in Britain.
> 6. Raising and diphthongization of /&/ before nasals: "man" [me@n],
> "clam" [kle@m].
Widespread in the US, but hardly general. This is a feature of the
style of pronunciation which Labov has dubbed the "Northern Cities
Shift". The shift is pervasive in certain accents, especially in
urban accents in the north. And, of course, this particular change is
also common in southern American accents. But it is not typical of
American accents generally. My brothers and my sister don't have it,
but I have noticed that my young niece is showing signs of it --
though I think that's just the NC Shift moving in from nearby Buffalo.
Anyway, raising and diphthongization of this vowel can also be heard
in Britain, particularly in the more extreme versions of RP and
particularly in certain words. For example, the word 'bad' can sound
like two syllables in the mouth of a very posh British speaker.
> > 4. Spelling pronunciations:
> >
> > 4b: Words like 'Sunday' and 'Tuesday' pronounced with stressed
> > 'day'.
>
> Also very common in the US.
Interesting. I have practically never heard this style of
pronunciation from an American, and it was one of the things that
struck me most immediately when I came to England.
> > 7. Loss of the contrast between pairs like 'moor' and 'more'.
> >
> > (Not unknown in the US, but far from general there.)
>
> Nearly universal in the US.
Also very interesting. When I left the States, I had occasionally
heard this merger, but it was far from usual. Things must have
changed since then. That's always a problem for me: I've been away
from the States for so long that my American English is fossilized. I
now have to depend largely on American TV shows to keep track of what
my countrymen are saying.
I have noticed, for example, that the pronunciation of 'route' with
the 'moon' vowel and the stressing of 'harass' on the first syllable,
both of which I grew up with, have now largely disappeared from
American speech. Perhaps there are still Yanks who pronounce 'route'
in the old way, but I never seem to hear them. Yet, when I was young,
there was a famous TV show named "Route 66", and I can't recall that I
*ever* heard anybody call it "Rout 66". And, as for 'harass', well, I
could easily be persuaded that I am the only American left alive who
still stresses it on the first syllable.
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
Brian M. Scott
Trask) wrote:
>"Aaron J. Dinkin" <a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote in message news:<s2SYa.66908$It4....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>...
[...]
>> > 4b: Words like 'Sunday' and 'Tuesday' pronounced with stressed
>> > 'day'.
>> Also very common in the US.
>Interesting. I have practically never heard this style of
>pronunciation from an American, and it was one of the things that
>struck me most immediately when I came to England.
I've never heard it in the U.S.
>> > 7. Loss of the contrast between pairs like 'moor' and 'more'.
>> > (Not unknown in the US, but far from general there.)
>> Nearly universal in the US.
>Also very interesting. When I left the States, I had occasionally
>heard this merger, but it was far from usual. Things must have
>changed since then.
I think that Aaron is simply wrong about this.
[...]
>I have noticed, for example, that the pronunciation of 'route' with
>the 'moon' vowel and the stressing of 'harass' on the first syllable,
>both of which I grew up with, have now largely disappeared from
>American speech. Perhaps there are still Yanks who pronounce 'route'
>in the old way, but I never seem to hear them.
Me. But I'm 55.
> Yet, when I was young,
>there was a famous TV show named "Route 66", and I can't recall that I
>*ever* heard anybody call it "Rout 66". And, as for 'harass', well, I
>could easily be persuaded that I am the only American left alive who
>still stresses it on the first syllable.
You're not!
Brian
Peter Dy
"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in message
news:3f354a28....@enews.newsguy.com...
> On 9 Aug 2003 11:13:19 -0700, R.L....@sussex.ac.uk (Larry
> Trask) wrote:
>
> >"Aaron J. Dinkin" <a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote in message
news:<s2SYa.66908$It4....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>...
>
> [...]
>
> >> > 4b: Words like 'Sunday' and 'Tuesday' pronounced with stressed
> >> > 'day'.
>
> >> Also very common in the US.
>
> >Interesting. I have practically never heard this style of
> >pronunciation from an American, and it was one of the things that
> >struck me most immediately when I came to England.
>
> I've never heard it in the U.S.
Never heard it in the US either.
> >> > 7. Loss of the contrast between pairs like 'moor' and 'more'.
>
> >> > (Not unknown in the US, but far from general there.)
>
> >> Nearly universal in the US.
>
> >Also very interesting. When I left the States, I had occasionally
> >heard this merger, but it was far from usual. Things must have
> >changed since then.
>
> I think that Aaron is simply wrong about this.
Don't recall hearing it ever either.
> [...]
>
> >I have noticed, for example, that the pronunciation of 'route' with
> >the 'moon' vowel and the stressing of 'harass' on the first syllable,
> >both of which I grew up with, have now largely disappeared from
> >American speech. Perhaps there are still Yanks who pronounce 'route'
> >in the old way, but I never seem to hear them.
>
> Me. But I'm 55.
I say "root 66", but I think I'd say "rout" in all other instances.
> > Yet, when I was young,
> >there was a famous TV show named "Route 66", and I can't recall that I
> >*ever* heard anybody call it "Rout 66". And, as for 'harass', well, I
> >could easily be persuaded that I am the only American left alive who
> >still stresses it on the first syllable.
Sounds "British" or snobbish when I hear it.
Peter
[..]
Phil Healey
>
> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in message
> news:3f354a28....@enews.newsguy.com...
> > On 9 Aug 2003 11:13:19 -0700, R.L....@sussex.ac.uk (Larry
> > Trask) wrote:
> >
> > >"Aaron J. Dinkin" <a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote in message
> news:<s2SYa.66908$It4....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>...
> >
[...]
> > >Interesting. I have practically never heard this style of
> > >pronunciation from an American, and it was one of the things that
> > >struck me most immediately when I came to England.
> >
> > I've never heard it in the U.S.
>
>
> Never heard it in the US either.
I've heard the 'day' in the days of the week pronounced 'dee': Sundee,
Mundee, etc. in the north of Texas. But I've never heard the 'day'
accented.
>
>
> > >> > 7. Loss of the contrast between pairs like 'moor' and 'more'.
> >
> > >> > (Not unknown in the US, but far from general there.)
> >
> > >> Nearly universal in the US.
But wouldn't this imply that poor/pore, lure/lore, boor/bore, etc. would
also collapse into a single pronunciation? They don't in the US.
> >
>
[...]
> >
> > >I have noticed, for example, that the pronunciation of 'route' with
> > >the 'moon' vowel and the stressing of 'harass' on the first syllable,
> > >both of which I grew up with, have now largely disappeared from
> > >American speech. Perhaps there are still Yanks who pronounce 'route'
> > >in the old way, but I never seem to hear them.
> >
> > Me. But I'm 55.
>
'Route' is an interesting question, because 'routers' (the kind used in
computer networks) are transliterated/translated into Japanese as
'ruutaa' and not 'rautaa', and I assume that this is a recent borrowing.
Of course, there are many other factors at play here, and in any case I
would pronounce 'router' to rhyme with 'louder.'
>
> I say "root 66", but I think I'd say "rout" in all other instances.
>
'Raut' 66 just sounds plain wrong.
>
[..]
>
>
--
Phil Healey
Somewhere in cyberspace
Jim Heckman
On 11-Aug-2003, Phil Healey <psa_h...@hotmail.com> wrote
in message <2003081107...@adlerpacific.com>:
[...]
> But wouldn't this imply that poor/pore, lure/lore, boor/bore, etc. would
> also collapse into a single pronunciation? They don't in the US.
My childhood dialect (again, Bakersfield CA, 60s-70s) merged
poor/pore/pour as /pOr/ and boar/boor/bore as /bOr/. I must have
been in high school before I realized <boor> wasn't just a
spelling variant of <bore> in its "boring person" meaning.
[...]
--
Jim Heckman
Larry Trask
[LT]
> > >And, as for 'harass', well, I
> > >could easily be persuaded that I am the only American left alive who
> > >still stresses it on the first syllable.
> Sounds "British" or snobbish when I hear it.
Most interesting. When I was growing up, this was the ordinary
pronunciation, and I simply learned it because that's how almost
everybody said it. Since then, American pronunciation has changed so
fast in this respect that I now sound "snobbish". And I haven't done
anything. This is a good example of how fast language change can be.
By the way, the version with final stress still sounds "ignorant" to
me.
;-)
I have another example. I grew up pronouncing the initial /hw-/
cluster in words like 'what' and 'white'. So, for me, 'whine' is
pronounced differently from 'wine', and 'whales' differently from
'Wales'.
When I was growing up, this pronunciation was practically universal in
the USA. According to the records I've seen, there were at the time
only three small areas in the country in which the /h/ had been lost
from /hw/.
But, no sooner had I learned this pronunciation, when American
pronunciation began to change with blinding speed. An American
colleague tells me that there is perhaps no American under the age of
fifty or so who still pronounces /hw/. My three younger siblings all
lack it. My mother noticed this change in pronunciation, and she
described the new pronunciation as "sloppy".
But I still have it. Several years ago, another American, about 25
years younger than me, joined my department here at Sussex. And she
tells me that she regards the use of /hw/ as "pretentious".
So, in the space of a few decades, I have gone from being a perfectly
normal speaker, indistinguishable from everybody else, to being
pretentious -- again without doing anything.
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
Larry Trask
> But wouldn't this imply that poor/pore, lure/lore, boor/bore, etc. would
> also collapse into a single pronunciation? They don't in the US.
Yes. In England, the words 'poor', 'pour', 'pore' and also 'paw' are
all pronounced identically. The same goes for other such words:
'moor', the name 'Moore', 'more' and 'maw', and so on.
But I'm interested to see that my countrymen are now lining up to deny
that 'moor' and 'more' are homophones in the US. I really found that
hard to believe. My wife is a film buff, and so we watched the Oscars
earlier this year. And I'm pretty sure that everybody pronounced
Michael Moore's name the way I would pronounce it, and that nobody
called him "Michael More", which is what they say in England.
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
Des Small
[...]
> I have another example. I grew up pronouncing the initial /hw-/
> cluster in words like 'what' and 'white'. So, for me, 'whine' is
> pronounced differently from 'wine', and 'whales' differently from
> 'Wales'.
>
> When I was growing up, this pronunciation was practically universal in
> the USA. According to the records I've seen, there were at the time
> only three small areas in the country in which the /h/ had been lost
> from /hw/.
>
> But, no sooner had I learned this pronunciation, when American
> pronunciation began to change with blinding speed. An American
> colleague tells me that there is perhaps no American under the age of
> fifty or so who still pronounces /hw/.
My boss is under 50, I'm fairly sure, and pronounces /hw/. Before
that I hadn't realised it existed in American.
[...]
Des
only uses it in Comedy Scottish.
--
Des Small / Scientific Programmer/ School of Mathematics /
University of Bristol / UK / Word falling / Image falling
Mark J. Reed
> Yes. In England, the words 'poor', 'pour', 'pore' and also 'paw' are
> all pronounced identically. The same goes for other such words:
> 'moor', the name 'Moore', 'more' and 'maw', and so on.
The rhoticized version of that seems to be true in the US, too,
as far as I can tell. It is at least true for me personally and the
bulk of my acquaintances that "Moore" and "more" are homophones,
as are "poor", "pour", and "pore". But as our speech is rhotic,
the pronunciations include the /r\/ and thus differ from "paw" and
"maw", but those also have a different vowel anyway, being indistinguishable
from "pa" and "ma".
I usually say "moor" and "Moor" to rhyme with "more" as well,
but those are relatively rare in my speech. So if context is
insufficient to indicate what I mean I sometimes alter the vowel such
that it comes out rhyming with what I imagine the pronunciation of
"poor" to be among those for whom it doesn't rhyme with "pore".
(Now that's a sentence!) That is, I usually pronounce "moor"
as X-SAMPA [mO`r\], but I sometimes distinguish it by saying
['mu@`r\] instead. I never, however, pronounce "poor" as
['pu@`r\].
> But I'm interested to see that my countrymen are now lining up to deny
> that 'moor' and 'more' are homophones in the US. I really found that
> hard to believe. My wife is a film buff, and so we watched the Oscars
> earlier this year. And I'm pretty sure that everybody pronounced
> Michael Moore's name the way I would pronounce it, and that nobody
> called him "Michael More", which is what they say in England.
You confused me here. The above paragraph appears to begin with your
saying that "moor" and "more" are homophones in the US (since you
are surprised by the denial of this fact), but then you finish by
saying that "Moore" does NOT rhyme with "More". ?
-Mark
Phil Healey
> "Peter Dy" <pet...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:<vyDZa.177$Zq1.21...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>...
>
> [LT]
>
> > > >And, as for 'harass', well, I
> > > >could easily be persuaded that I am the only American left alive who
> > > >still stresses it on the first syllable.
>
> > Sounds "British" or snobbish when I hear it.
>
[snip]
> I have another example. I grew up pronouncing the initial /hw-/
> cluster in words like 'what' and 'white'. So, for me, 'whine' is
> pronounced differently from 'wine', and 'whales' differently from
> 'Wales'.
>
[snip]
I'm 31, and I pronounce /hw-/. In fact, as I try the various pairs out,
there seems to be a change of meaning: 'why' without the [h] sounds like
the letter Y. 'Why did you do that?' without the [h] could easily be
replaced with 'J did you do that?' or any other letter of the alphabet.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter Dy" <pet...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:<vyDZa.177$Zq1.21...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>...
>
> [LT]
>
> > > >And, as for 'harass', well, I
> > > >could easily be persuaded that I am the only American left alive who
> > > >still stresses it on the first syllable.
>
> > Sounds "British" or snobbish when I hear it.
>
> Most interesting. When I was growing up, this was the ordinary
> pronunciation, and I simply learned it because that's how almost
> everybody said it. Since then, American pronunciation has changed so
> fast in this respect that I now sound "snobbish". And I haven't done
> anything. This is a good example of how fast language change can be.
>
> By the way, the version with final stress still sounds "ignorant" to
> me.
> ;-)
In the days of Monica, when "sexual harassment" was everywhere, the word
shot up in frequency, and I think newspeople thought they would be
saying "ass" if they pronounced it the usual way.
I figured if it had two r's like "embarrass," then the stress could go
on the first syllable.
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>On Mon, Aug 11, 2003 at 09:18:35AM -0700, Larry Trask wrote:
[...]
>> But I'm interested to see that my countrymen are now lining up to deny
>> that 'moor' and 'more' are homophones in the US. I really found that
>> hard to believe. My wife is a film buff, and so we watched the Oscars
>> earlier this year. And I'm pretty sure that everybody pronounced
>> Michael Moore's name the way I would pronounce it, and that nobody
>> called him "Michael More", which is what they say in England.
>You confused me here. The above paragraph appears to begin with your
>saying that "moor" and "more" are homophones in the US (since you
>are surprised by the denial of this fact),
Look back up the thread. Larry was surprised when Aaron Dinkin
claimed that they were almost universally homophonous in the U.S.
and therefore interested (and probably not surprised) to see that
a number of us disagree with Aaron.
>but then you finish by
>saying that "Moore" does NOT rhyme with "More". ?
He's saying that so far as he can recall, at the Oscar ceremony
no one pronounced <Moore> to rhyme with <More>. This is exactly
what I'd expect: in my experience <moor> and <Moore> are not
usually homophonous with <more> in the U.S. I know that there
are U.S. dialects in which they do merge, but they haven't been
common anywhere that I've lived.
Brian
Peter Dy
"Larry Trask" <R.L....@sussex.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:519d8f2c.0308...@posting.google.com...
> "Peter Dy" <pet...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:<vyDZa.177$Zq1.21...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>...
> I have another example. I grew up pronouncing the initial /hw-/
> cluster in words like 'what' and 'white'. So, for me, 'whine' is
> pronounced differently from 'wine', and 'whales' differently from
> 'Wales'.
>
> When I was growing up, this pronunciation was practically universal in
> the USA. According to the records I've seen, there were at the time
> only three small areas in the country in which the /h/ had been lost
> from /hw/.
>
> But, no sooner had I learned this pronunciation, when American
> pronunciation began to change with blinding speed. An American
> colleague tells me that there is perhaps no American under the age of
> fifty or so who still pronounces /hw/. My three younger siblings all
> lack it. My mother noticed this change in pronunciation, and she
> described the new pronunciation as "sloppy".
>
> But I still have it. Several years ago, another American, about 25
> years younger than me, joined my department here at Sussex. And she
> tells me that she regards the use of /hw/ as "pretentious".
Yes, pretentious. :)
If it makes you feel any better, I don't have the cot/caught merger. Also,
I pronounce some French-origin words in a French way, for example, "en
masse". I pronounce "croissant" in a partially French way, without the "t".
Peter
Richard Herring
Trask <R.L....@sussex.ac.uk> writes
>Phil Healey <psa_h...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:<2003081107...@adlerpacific.com>...
>
>> But wouldn't this imply that poor/pore, lure/lore, boor/bore, etc. would
>> also collapse into a single pronunciation? They don't in the US.
>
>Yes. In England, the words 'poor', 'pour', 'pore' and also 'paw' are
>all pronounced identically.
Not here. My <poor> has [u] not [O], and there's something different
about the shape of the glide in <paw>. All are non-rhotic.
> The same goes for other such words:
>'moor', the name 'Moore', 'more' and 'maw', and so on.
Homophones except for <maw> which rhymes with <paw>.
--
Richard Herring
Larry Trask
> I'm 31, and I pronounce /hw-/.
Right. Glad to hear it.
I was told a few years ago by a very eminent American linguist that
practically no Americans under the age of fifty or so were still
pronouncing /hw-/. And my experience of American speech largely
confirms that.
However, every once in a while, I hear /hw-/ from an American, or at
least from somebody who sounds American. For example, just the other
night, I found myself watching a dreary Al Pacino movie called _On Any
Given Sunday_. And I noticed that two of the actors playing minor
characters, both fairly young, pronounced /hw-/. Well, that gives you
an idea of just how gripping the film is: I found it more interesting
to listen to the actors' speech than to follow the story.
Still, it's nice to hear that /hw-/ is not gone yet.
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
Phil Healey
If I'm not mistaken, though, the /hw-/ pronunciation has been around
since the very beginning, right? ('Hwaet' and all that.) Why would it
suddenly be dying out now?
Torsten Poulin
> If I'm not mistaken, though, the /hw-/ pronunciation has been
> around since the very beginning, right? ('Hwaet' and all that.)
You even find it it some Danish dialects. E.g., <hvad> /hwa/.
--
Torsten
Larry Trask
> If I'm not mistaken, though, the /hw-/ pronunciation has been around
> since the very beginning, right? ('Hwaet' and all that.) Why would it
> suddenly be dying out now?
Why does any language change occur at any particular time?
The reduction of /hw-/ to /w-/ occurred much earlier in England than
in North America. By 1900, /hw-/ was probably gone everywhere in
vernacular speech in England, though there remained a kind of dim folk
notion that there was something elegant about /hw-/, and teachers of
elocution in England tried to teach their students to say it well into
the 20th century.
Today, if I hear someone with an English accent who pronounces /hw-/,
I know at once that he is a Scotsman who has carefully acquired an
English accent. This is one feature that Scots seem unable to lose,
but then there is no particular motive for losing it, since it is in
no way stigmatized in England.
The Southern Hemisphere countries generally lack /hw-/, apparently
since they were largely settled by English-speakers who had already
lost the cluster, though one of my colleagues, who works on New
Zealand English, tells me that a handful of speakers on the South
Island still have /hw-/.
The cluster is still rock-solid in Scotland and in Ireland. I'm
afraid I don't know what the position is in Canada. Anybody know?
If you like to take the long view, you can look at the reduction of
/hw-/ as merely the final step in the reduction of initial /hC-/
clusters in English. Old English had a bunch of these: /hn-/ as in
<hnutu> 'nut', /hr-/ as in <hring> 'ring', and /hl-/ as in <hlud>
'loud', as well as /hw-/. All the others lost their /h/ long ago.
But things can go further. The consonant /h/ has been *entirely* lost
from the vernacular speech of England, save only in three small,
widely separated and rapidly shrinking regions. Outside those three
small regions, /h/ in England is strictly a feature of educated
speech. And, of course, it's a shibboleth: if you want to sound
educated in England, then you *must* acquire those precious aitches.
And, of course, you must put them in the right places. You will
impress nobody by talking about "the hair of the hatmosphere".
However, in the corridors of popular culture, vernacular speech is
fashionable and cool, and few pop singers, stand-up comedians or
soap-opera performers would be caught dead pronouncing aitches. No
street cred, you see.
A footnote. There is a celebrated New Zealander, whose speech was
recorded in the 1940s when he was elderly, who had the cluster /hw-/
consistently in his speech but who otherwise lacked the consonant /h/
entirely. This is a magnificent example of what happens when a
territory is settled by people speaking with a variety of accents.
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
Aaron J. Dinkin
> I was told a few years ago by a very eminent American linguist that
> practically no Americans under the age of fifty or so were still
> pronouncing /hw-/. And my experience of American speech largely
> confirms that.
My understanding - though I don't think I've seen any specific data
backing this up - is that /hw/ is still widespread in the South and South
Midlands dialect stripes of the U.S. I have a friend well under thirty who
uses /hw/ and is a native of Michigan, but I think she's a fluke.
When I was in elementary school in the second half of the 1980s, I vaguely
recall being told that /hw/ was "the more proper pronunciation", but that
nobody actually said it anymore.
Aaron J. Dinkin
> On 9 Aug 2003 11:13:19 -0700, R.L....@sussex.ac.uk (Larry
> Trask) wrote:
>
>>"Aaron J. Dinkin" <a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote in message news:<s2SYa.66908$It4....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>...
[Larry wrote:]
>>> > 4b: Words like 'Sunday' and 'Tuesday' pronounced with stressed
>>> > 'day'.
>
>>> Also very common in the US.
>
>>Interesting. I have practically never heard this style of
>>pronunciation from an American, and it was one of the things that
>>struck me most immediately when I came to England.
>
> I've never heard it in the U.S.
Having read through the many followups to my comments, I get the
impression that I misinterpreted what Larry meant. I interpreted point 4b
as referring to the pronunciation of "Sunday" and "Monday" with the second
syllable pronounced as the word "day", presumably with some tertiary level
of stress on it, rather than totally unstressed and reduced to /i/ so as
to rhyme with "Fundy" and "Grundy". If what Larry meant was that there
should be secondary or even primary stress on "-day", then no, I've never
heard that in the U.S.
>>> > 7. Loss of the contrast between pairs like 'moor' and 'more'.
>
>>> > (Not unknown in the US, but far from general there.)
>
>>> Nearly universal in the US.
>
>>Also very interesting. When I left the States, I had occasionally
>>heard this merger, but it was far from usual. Things must have
>>changed since then.
>
> I think that Aaron is simply wrong about this.
Again, I think I misinterpreted what Larry meant. I assumed Larry was
referring to the "horse"/"hoarse" merger, which is as far as I know nearly
universal at least in standard-sounding U.S. accents. But I gather that
Larry was actually referring to the "poor"/"pore" merger - which is, as
far as I know, reasonably widespread in the U.S., though not nearly
universal as I said. I have the "poor"/"pore" merger, and in particular I
say "moor" like "more", so I had no knowledge that "moor" in some dialects
has /u/. Does "floor" also have /u/ in dialects that distinguish "poor"
and "pore"?
Aaron J. Dinkin
> "Aaron J. Dinkin" <a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote in message news:<s2SYa.66908$It4....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>...
>
>> 6. Raising and diphthongization of /&/ before nasals: "man" [me@n],
>> "clam" [kle@m].
>
> Widespread in the US, but hardly general. This is a feature of the
> style of pronunciation which Labov has dubbed the "Northern Cities
> Shift". The shift is pervasive in certain accents, especially in
> urban accents in the north. And, of course, this particular change is
> also common in southern American accents. But it is not typical of
> American accents generally. My brothers and my sister don't have it,
> but I have noticed that my young niece is showing signs of it --
> though I think that's just the NC Shift moving in from nearby Buffalo.
The Northern Cities shift has /&/ becoming [e@] in all circumstances. But
I believe at least standard dialects of the West - the influential
dialects of California, for example - and New England (which I'm most
familiar with) raise /&/ to [e@] only before nasals. So "pat" has [&] but
"pan" has [e@]. This is more widespread and standard than the Northern
Cities shift. Also, large mid-Atlantic urban areas like New York and
Philadelphia have undergone a split of /&/ to two phonemes, one usually
more like [&] and one usually more like [e@], and the second one appears
more often (but not always) before nasals. So between the mid-Atlantic /&/
split, the Northern Cities shift, and the pre-nasal raising of /&/ in at
least two other regions, I think words like "pan" have [e@] rather than
[&] in a majority of influential American accents.
> I have noticed, for example, that the pronunciation of 'route' with
> the 'moon' vowel and the stressing of 'harass' on the first syllable,
> both of which I grew up with, have now largely disappeared from
> American speech. Perhaps there are still Yanks who pronounce 'route'
> in the old way, but I never seem to hear them.
"Route" with /u/ is still usual in the Northeast, at any rate; /aU/ seems
to be more common in the Midwest. See
<http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/staticmaps/q_26.html>.
> And, as for 'harass', well, I could easily be persuaded that I am the
> only American left alive who still stresses it on the first syllable.
I didn't realize that the first-syllable stress was older. The spelling
suggests the second-.
Aaron J. Dinkin
>> > >"Aaron J. Dinkin" <a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote in message
>> news:<s2SYa.66908$It4....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>...
[Larry wrote:]
>> > >> > 7. Loss of the contrast between pairs like 'moor' and 'more'.
>> >
>> > >> > (Not unknown in the US, but far from general there.)
>> >
>> > >> Nearly universal in the US.
>
> But wouldn't this imply that poor/pore, lure/lore, boor/bore, etc. would
> also collapse into a single pronunciation? They don't in the US.
As I wrote elsewhere, I mistakenly thought Larry was talking about the
"horse"/"hoarse" merger. But at any rate, the "poor"/"pore" merger is
widespread in the U.S., if not yet quite standard. "Lure" is in a
different category, because presumably at the time that the "poor"/"pore"
merger began, "poor" and "lure" did not have the same vowel. If anything,
in some US dialects, words like "lure", "pure", "sure", and so on are in
danger of rhyming with "fur" and "sir", not "fore" and "sore".
I merge "poor"/"pore" and "moor"/"more" but not "boor"/"bore"; I attribute
this to spelling pronunciation. That is, I have read the word "boor"
orders of magnitude more frequently than I've heard it, and in particular
never heard it when I was young and impressionable, so my mind's ear read
it as /bur/ and it stuck that way. I also don't merge "tour"/"tore".
Brian M. Scott
<a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote:
>On Sat, 09 Aug 2003 19:25:29 GMT, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>> On 9 Aug 2003 11:13:19 -0700, R.L....@sussex.ac.uk (Larry
>> Trask) wrote:
>>>"Aaron J. Dinkin" <a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote in message news:<s2SYa.66908$It4....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>...
>[Larry wrote:]
[...]
>>>> > 7. Loss of the contrast between pairs like 'moor' and 'more'.
>>>> > (Not unknown in the US, but far from general there.)
>>>> Nearly universal in the US.
>>>Also very interesting. When I left the States, I had occasionally
>>>heard this merger, but it was far from usual. Things must have
>>>changed since then.
>> I think that Aaron is simply wrong about this.
>Again, I think I misinterpreted what Larry meant. I assumed Larry was
>referring to the "horse"/"hoarse" merger, which is as far as I know nearly
>universal at least in standard-sounding U.S. accents. But I gather that
>Larry was actually referring to the "poor"/"pore" merger - which is, as
>far as I know, reasonably widespread in the U.S., though not nearly
>universal as I said.
And when I was growing up it could still be stigmatized as
substandard, at least in some parts of the country. I became
aware of the 'pore' pronunciation of 'poor' already as a child,
since it's common in literary attempts to represent dialect, but
at the time I thought of it as a hick pronunciation. I didn't
really become aware of the 'more' pronunciation of 'moor' and
'Moor(e)' until I first went to England.
>I have the "poor"/"pore" merger, and in particular I
>say "moor" like "more", so I had no knowledge that "moor" in some dialects
>has /u/.
Is that /u/ as in /u/ vs. /U/, or /u/ as in /u/ vs. /uw/
(Trager-Smith)? I'm assuming the former.
>Does "floor" also have /u/ in dialects that distinguish "poor"
>and "pore"?
No. Nor in 'door'.
Brian
Jim Heckman
On 13-Aug-2003, "Aaron J. Dinkin" <a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote
in message <I7E_a.96673$It4....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>:
[...]
> this to spelling pronunciation. That is, I have read the word "boor"
> orders of magnitude more frequently than I've heard it, and in particular
> never heard it when I was young and impressionable, so my mind's ear read
> it as /bur/ and it stuck that way. I also don't merge "tour"/"tore".
Does *anyone* merge "tour"/"tore"?
--
Jim Heckman
James Dolan
Jim Heckman <wnzrfe...@lnubb.pbz.invalid> wrote:
offhand i'd guess that pretty much all downstate new yorkers (such as
myself) do. all these "moor"/"more", "tour"/"tore", etc. distinctions
sound ultra-hick to new yorkers, i think. i had some vague impression
that people in indiana or somewhere made such a distinction, but i was
surprised to see an apparently wider class of people claiming such a
distinction.
--
[e-mail address jdo...@math.ucr.edu]
Phil Healey
I don't merge any of these. In fact, now that you mention it, I realize
'lure' rhymes with 'sewer' the way I say it, so it doesn't belong at all
in the list.
Phil Healey
> Phil Healey <psa_h...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<2003081218...@adlerpacific.com>...
>
> > If I'm not mistaken, though, the /hw-/ pronunciation has been around
> > since the very beginning, right? ('Hwaet' and all that.) Why would it
> > suddenly be dying out now?
>
>
> The cluster is still rock-solid in Scotland and in Ireland. I'm
My mother's side of the family originally comes from Wales (a *long*
time ago). I wonder if that could be the reason.
> If you like to take the long view, you can look at the reduction of
> /hw-/ as merely the final step in the reduction of initial /hC-/
> clusters in English. Old English had a bunch of these: /hn-/ as in
> <hnutu> 'nut', /hr-/ as in <hring> 'ring', and /hl-/ as in <hlud>
> 'loud', as well as /hw-/. All the others lost their /h/ long ago.
So I guess we are in the midst of a momentous change: the English
language is losing a trait that has characterized it for ... over 1500
years?
>
[snip]
Phil Healey
> uses /hw/ and is a native of Michigan, but I think she's a fluke.
Hey! My father spent his childhood in Michigan!
Peter T. Daniels
>
> In article <vjm8ucm...@corp.supernews.com>,
> Jim Heckman <wnzrfe...@lnubb.pbz.invalid> wrote:
>
> |On 13-Aug-2003, "Aaron J. Dinkin" <a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote
> |in message <I7E_a.96673$It4....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>:
> |
> |[...]
> |
> |> this to spelling pronunciation. That is, I have read the word "boor"
> |> orders of magnitude more frequently than I've heard it, and in particular
> |> never heard it when I was young and impressionable, so my mind's ear read
> |> it as /bur/ and it stuck that way. I also don't merge "tour"/"tore".
> |
> |Does *anyone* merge "tour"/"tore"?
>
> offhand i'd guess that pretty much all downstate new yorkers (such as
Is New York City no longer in "Downstate"?
> myself) do. all these "moor"/"more", "tour"/"tore", etc. distinctions
> sound ultra-hick to new yorkers, i think. i had some vague impression
> that people in indiana or somewhere made such a distinction, but i was
> surprised to see an apparently wider class of people claiming such a
> distinction.
???????????????????????
Most of Upstate New York is, dialectologically, Midwestern. You would
seem to be on that side of the line.
James Dolan
peter t. daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
|James Dolan wrote:
|>
|> In article <vjm8ucm...@corp.supernews.com>,
|> Jim Heckman <wnzrfe...@lnubb.pbz.invalid> wrote:
|>
|> |On 13-Aug-2003, "Aaron J. Dinkin" <a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote
|> |in message <I7E_a.96673$It4....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>:
|> |
|> |[...]
|> |
|> |> this to spelling pronunciation. That is, I have read the word "boor"
|> |> orders of magnitude more frequently than I've heard it, and in particular
|> |> never heard it when I was young and impressionable, so my mind's ear read
|> |> it as /bur/ and it stuck that way. I also don't merge "tour"/"tore".
|> |
|> |Does *anyone* merge "tour"/"tore"?
|>
|> offhand i'd guess that pretty much all downstate new yorkers (such as
|
|Is New York City no longer in "Downstate"?
of course it's downstate, and offhand i'm guessing that nyc people
merge "tour" and "tore" just as long islanders like myself do. you're
probably contaminated by chicago or something, i'd guess. if you can
get richard fontana over at a.u.e to agree that nyc people generally
distinguish "tour" and "tore" then i'd probably begin to suspect that
i was wrong, but i find your own opinion worthless in this case as in
most cases.
|> myself) do. all these "moor"/"more", "tour"/"tore", etc. distinctions
|> sound ultra-hick to new yorkers, i think. i had some vague impression
|> that people in indiana or somewhere made such a distinction, but i was
|> surprised to see an apparently wider class of people claiming such a
|> distinction.
|
|???????????????????????
|
|Most of Upstate New York is, dialectologically, Midwestern. You would
|seem to be on that side of the line.
|--
|Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
--
[e-mail address jdo...@math.ucr.edu]
Brian M. Scott
<wnzrfe...@lnubb.pbz.invalid> wrote:
[...]
>Does *anyone* merge "tour"/"tore"?
Yes: <http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/cardiff.htm> for RP.
Brian
Larry Trask
[LT]
> > And, as for 'harass', well, I could easily be persuaded that I am the
> > only American left alive who still stresses it on the first syllable.
> I didn't realize that the first-syllable stress was older. The spelling
> suggests the second-.
I haven't looked into this, and I don't know the history. But, when I
was a child, the word 'harass' was almost always stressed on the first
syllable, thus rhyming with 'embarrass'. I occasionally heard it
stressed on the second syllable, but only from people of limited
education, and I regarded this style as uneducated. I don't think I
was alone in this view. But clearly the position has changed since
then. The Americans I hear on TV invariably stress the word on the
last syllable.
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
Larry Trask
> Having read through the many followups to my comments, I get the
> impression that I misinterpreted what Larry meant. I interpreted point 4b
> as referring to the pronunciation of "Sunday" and "Monday" with the second
> syllable pronounced as the word "day", presumably with some tertiary level
> of stress on it, rather than totally unstressed and reduced to /i/ so as
> to rhyme with "Fundy" and "Grundy". If what Larry meant was that there
> should be secondary or even primary stress on "-day", then no, I've never
> heard that in the U.S.
OK; I apologize for my lack of clarity.
In England, 'Sunday' is pronounced as though it were two words, 'Sun
Day', much as an American would pronounce 'Flag Day'. And 'Friday' is
pronounced 'Fry Day', as though it were one of a set with 'Boil Day'
and 'Bake Day'. Likewise for the other day names. They're all
pronounced like 'birthday'.
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
LEE Sau Dan
Aaron> Having read through the many followups to my comments, I
Aaron> get the impression that I misinterpreted what Larry
Aaron> meant. I interpreted point 4b as referring to the
Aaron> pronunciation of "Sunday" and "Monday" with the second
Aaron> syllable pronounced as the word "day", presumably with some
Aaron> tertiary level of stress on it, rather than totally
Aaron> unstressed and reduced to /i/ so as to rhyme with "Fundy"
Aaron> and "Grundy".
That is the case in Australian. They pronounce "day" as [t@i] and
"Sunday" as [s@nt@i]. Stress? To me, both syllables seem to be
stressed almost equaly. (I'm not that good at perceiving/determining
stress.)
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦(Big5) ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ)
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
LEE Sau Dan
Larry> Today, if I hear someone with an English accent who
Larry> pronounces /hw-/, I know at once that he is a Scotsman who
Larry> has carefully acquired an English accent.
I'll make you wrong. I like to pronounce the /hw-/, and I do
pronounce it. Guess what accent I have?
Larry> If you like to take the long view, you can look at the
Larry> reduction of /hw-/ as merely the final step in the
Larry> reduction of initial /hC-/ clusters in English. Old
Larry> English had a bunch of these: /hn-/ as in <hnutu> 'nut',
Larry> /hr-/ as in <hring> 'ring', and /hl-/ as in <hlud> 'loud',
Larry> as well as /hw-/. All the others lost their /h/ long ago.
Are these /hC-/ things really clusters, or just devoiced versions of
the the /C/?
Larry> But things can go further. The consonant /h/ has been
Larry> *entirely* lost from the vernacular speech of England, save
Larry> only in three small, widely separated and rapidly shrinking
Larry> regions.
Entirely lost? You mean they pronounce "I ate apples" and "I hate
apples" in the same way?
James Dolan
larry trask <r.l....@sussex.ac.uk> wrote:
to me this sounds like a description of the way that americans (as far
as i know) pronounce the day names.
--
[e-mail address jdo...@math.ucr.edu]
Aaron J. Dinkin
Correctly assumed. Does it in some dialects have /u/ as in /u/ vs.
/uw/?
Aaron J. Dinkin
> of course it's downstate, and offhand i'm guessing that nyc people
> merge "tour" and "tore" just as long islanders like myself do.
> you're probably contaminated by chicago or something, i'd guess. if
> you can get richard fontana over at a.u.e to agree that nyc people
> generally distinguish "tour" and "tore" then i'd probably begin to
> suspect that i was wrong, but i find your own opinion worthless in
> this case as in most cases.
Crossposting to a.u.e added. Richard, how do you pronounce "tour"?
Larry G
I'm not Richard, but there's a news reporter in L.A. from Boston that
pronounces "tour" as "tore". I pronounce it as "too-er" with one syllable,
why I'd say my "girl" is two because of the "rl" I don't know.
Larry
Brian M. Scott
<a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote:
>On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 05:04:49 GMT, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>> On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 04:04:30 GMT, "Aaron J. Dinkin"
>><a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote:
>>> I have the "poor"/"pore" merger, and in particular I say "moor" like
>>> "more", so I had no knowledge that "moor" in some dialects has /u/.
>> Is that /u/ as in /u/ vs. /U/, or /u/ as in /u/ vs. /uw/
>> (Trager-Smith)? I'm assuming the former.
>Correctly assumed. Does it in some dialects have /u/ as in /u/ vs.
>/uw/?
Not that I know of; I just wanted to be sure that we were talking
about the same thing.
Brian
R F
Difficult to say. "Tour" and "tore" aren't completely merged for me, I'm
sure of that, but it feels like they are in the process of merging. "Tour"
feels like it would sound wrong with the initial vowel sound as open as
the "tore" vowel can be, for me. This is even more true of "sure" vs.
"shore" (though I also pronounce "sure" to rhyme with "cur").
But another thing is that I'm pretty dead sure that older New York city
speakers have a sharper tour/tore difference.
Robert Bannister
Plus many BrE speakers, including the Queen, merge 'tour' and the sound
'taw'. I have at least 2 syllables.
--
Rob Bannister
Peter T. Daniels
>
> >>>>> "Larry" == Larry Trask <R.L....@sussex.ac.uk> writes:
>
> Larry> Today, if I hear someone with an English accent who
> Larry> pronounces /hw-/, I know at once that he is a Scotsman who
> Larry> has carefully acquired an English accent.
>
> I'll make you wrong. I like to pronounce the /hw-/, and I do
> pronounce it. Guess what accent I have?
Chinese?
> Larry> If you like to take the long view, you can look at the
> Larry> reduction of /hw-/ as merely the final step in the
> Larry> reduction of initial /hC-/ clusters in English. Old
> Larry> English had a bunch of these: /hn-/ as in <hnutu> 'nut',
> Larry> /hr-/ as in <hring> 'ring', and /hl-/ as in <hlud> 'loud',
> Larry> as well as /hw-/. All the others lost their /h/ long ago.
>
> Are these /hC-/ things really clusters, or just devoiced versions of
> the the /C/?
And we would be able to determine that how?
> Larry> But things can go further. The consonant /h/ has been
> Larry> *entirely* lost from the vernacular speech of England, save
> Larry> only in three small, widely separated and rapidly shrinking
> Larry> regions.
>
> Entirely lost? You mean they pronounce "I ate apples" and "I hate
> apples" in the same way?
_How_ long have you been exposed to the English language?
Peter T. Daniels
>
> in article <3f3b76...@worldnet.att.net>,
> peter t. daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> |James Dolan wrote:
> |>
> |> In article <vjm8ucm...@corp.supernews.com>,
> |> Jim Heckman <wnzrfe...@lnubb.pbz.invalid> wrote:
> |>
> |> |On 13-Aug-2003, "Aaron J. Dinkin" <a...@post.harvard.edu> wrote
> |> |in message <I7E_a.96673$It4....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>:
> |> |
> |> |[...]
> |> |
> |> |> this to spelling pronunciation. That is, I have read the word "boor"
> |> |> orders of magnitude more frequently than I've heard it, and in particular
> |> |> never heard it when I was young and impressionable, so my mind's ear read
> |> |> it as /bur/ and it stuck that way. I also don't merge "tour"/"tore".
> |> |
> |> |Does *anyone* merge "tour"/"tore"?
> |>
> |> offhand i'd guess that pretty much all downstate new yorkers (such as
> |
> |Is New York City no longer in "Downstate"?
>
> of course it's downstate, and offhand i'm guessing that nyc people
> merge "tour" and "tore" just as long islanders like myself do. you're
> probably contaminated by chicago or something, i'd guess. if you can
> get richard fontana over at a.u.e to agree that nyc people generally
> distinguish "tour" and "tore" then i'd probably begin to suspect that
> i was wrong, but i find your own opinion worthless in this case as in
> most cases.
Oh, if I had remembered who you were and your posting history, I
wouldn't have bothered to reply.
Peter T. Daniels
Thank you. I trust the nasty Mr. Dolan has felt the metaphorical kick in
a place where it hurts.
Peter T. Daniels
Coming on the heels of what else you claimed to "know," that's worth
exactly nothing.
Peter T. Daniels
Once again: the "harris" version seemed to be people trying not to say
"ass."
Mark J. Reed
LT> reduction of /hw-/ as merely the final step in the
LT> reduction of initial /hC-/ clusters in English. Old
LT> English had a bunch of these: /hn-/ as in <hnutu> 'nut',
LT> /hr-/ as in <hring> 'ring', and /hl-/ as in <hlud> 'loud',
LT> as well as /hw-/. All the others lost their /h/ long ago.
LSD> Are these /hC-/ things really clusters, or just devoiced versions of
LSD> the the /C/?
That's a good question. I would imagine that they started out as
clusters and then merged into voiceless consonants, but that's just
a guess. I have long believed that those who pronounce
<wh-> differently from <w-> pronounce it as [W], and that the
description of it as [hw] was just one of those approximations intended
for those people - the vast majority of both native and non-native English
students - who don't know the difference between a "voiceless labiovelar
fricative" and a "voiced labiovelar approximant". But I cannot identify
the source of this belief.
PTD> And we would be able to determine that how?
What an odd question! How do we determine anything in linguistics?
How is it we have a pretty good idea of the classical pronunciation
of Latin? Is this a science or not?
LT> But things can go further. The consonant /h/ has been
LT> *entirely* lost from the vernacular speech of England, save
LT> only in three small, widely separated and rapidly shrinking
LT> regions.
LSD> Entirely lost? You mean they pronounce "I ate apples" and "I hate
LSD> apples" in the same way?
I believe that in those dialects in which [h] has been lost as a phonetic
realization of /h/, the /h/ remains in the form of [?]. Thus "I ate apples"
is [ajejt'&pl=z] while "I hate apples" is [aj?ejt'&pl=z]. But again,
I'm just throwing out what I think, and stand ready to be proven wrong.
-Mark
Brian M. Scott
>Larry Trask wrote:
>> [LT]
However it may seem, this is unlikely to be the case: it's the
only pronunciation given by the OED.
Brian
Peter T. Daniels
>
> LT> If you like to take the long view, you can look at the
> LT> reduction of /hw-/ as merely the final step in the
> LT> reduction of initial /hC-/ clusters in English. Old
> LT> English had a bunch of these: /hn-/ as in <hnutu> 'nut',
> LT> /hr-/ as in <hring> 'ring', and /hl-/ as in <hlud> 'loud',
> LT> as well as /hw-/. All the others lost their /h/ long ago.
>
> LSD> Are these /hC-/ things really clusters, or just devoiced versions of
> LSD> the the /C/?
>
> That's a good question. I would imagine that they started out as
> clusters and then merged into voiceless consonants, but that's just
> a guess. I have long believed that those who pronounce
> <wh-> differently from <w-> pronounce it as [W], and that the
> description of it as [hw] was just one of those approximations intended
> for those people - the vast majority of both native and non-native English
> students - who don't know the difference between a "voiceless labiovelar
> fricative" and a "voiced labiovelar approximant". But I cannot identify
> the source of this belief.
>
> PTD> And we would be able to determine that how?
>
> What an odd question! How do we determine anything in linguistics?
About the _phonetics_ of dead languages?
> How is it we have a pretty good idea of the classical pronunciation
> of Latin? Is this a science or not?
Oh, I don't know, could it be because THERE WERE LATIN GRAMMARIANS WHO
TELL US?
> LT> But things can go further. The consonant /h/ has been
> LT> *entirely* lost from the vernacular speech of England, save
> LT> only in three small, widely separated and rapidly shrinking
> LT> regions.
>
> LSD> Entirely lost? You mean they pronounce "I ate apples" and "I hate
> LSD> apples" in the same way?
>
> I believe that in those dialects in which [h] has been lost as a phonetic
> realization of /h/, the /h/ remains in the form of [?]. Thus "I ate apples"
> is [ajejt'&pl=z] while "I hate apples" is [aj?ejt'&pl=z]. But again,
> I'm just throwing out what I think, and stand ready to be proven wrong.
Peter T. Daniels
So what? It's the Americans, who usually say ha-RASS, who, when the word
rocketed into popularity, who were trying to avoid saying "ass," not
"arse," with which it doesn't even rhyme.
Arnold Zwicky
brian scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> continues the HARass/haRASS thread:
>>Larry Trask wrote:
NSOED gives both, with the "harris" version first. AHD4 gives
both, with the "her ass" version first - and with an entertaining
usage note:
Educated usage appears to be evenly divided on the pronunciation
of _harass_. In a recent survey 50 percent of the Usage Panel
preferrred stressing the first syllable, while 50 percent
preferred stressing the second. Curiously, the Panelists'
comments appear to indicate that each side regards itself as
an embattled minority.
i might have told the story here of chomsky's course at the 1966
linguistic institute (at ucla), which was essentially a compressed
version of the forthcoming Sound Pattern of English. chomsky
repeatedly referred to "the caRESS/haRASS" set of examples and
was baffled by the little wave of titters that ran through the
(gigantic, for linguistics) audience.
arnold
Thomas Sletvold
+0200
>
>
> Larry> If you like to take the long view, you can look at the
> Larry> reduction of /hw-/ as merely the final step in the
> Larry> reduction of initial /hC-/ clusters in English. Old
> Larry> English had a bunch of these: /hn-/ as in <hnutu> 'nut',
> Larry> /hr-/ as in <hring> 'ring', and /hl-/ as in <hlud> 'loud',
> Larry> as well as /hw-/. All the others lost their /h/ long ago.
>
> Are these /hC-/ things really clusters, or just devoiced versions of
> the the /C/?
>
They are still clusters in modern Icelandic, and I guess they were clusters
in OE too.
Helsing
Thomas
Peter T. Daniels
OTOH he might affect the ass/arse distinction ... but OTOH he's from
Philadelphia, and their vowels are totally weird.
Brian M. Scott
>Brian M. Scott wrote:
>> On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 14:06:04 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
[...]
>> >Once again: the "harris" version seemed to be people trying not to say
>> >"ass."
>> However it may seem, this is unlikely to be the case: it's the
>> only pronunciation given by the OED.
>So what? It's the Americans, who usually say ha-RASS, who, when the word
>rocketed into popularity, who were trying to avoid saying "ass," not
>"arse," with which it doesn't even rhyme.
So it's the older pronunciation. OED1 gives /'har@s/ and nothing else.
Webster 1913 also has only one pronunciation, with stress on the first
syllable. Since that's the older pronunciation, it did not arise out
of an attempt to avoid 'ass'.
Brian
Peter T. Daniels
It was *resurrected* to avoid saying "ass."
James Dolan
peter t. daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
what are you talking about? what is that i just recently claimed to
"know"?
--
[e-mail address jdo...@math.ucr.edu]
John Catlow
> realization of /h/, the /h/ remains in the form of [?]. Thus "I ate
apples"
> is [ajejt'&pl=z] while "I hate apples" is [aj?ejt'&pl=z]. But again,
> I'm just throwing out what I think, and stand ready to be proven wrong.
I think otherwise. I don't believe the 'dropped h' leaves any audible trace,
although most speakers probably know which words ought to have /h/, and are
capable of restoring it when the occasion demands.
Incidentally, in Britain the word <ate> is often /et/ (rhyming with <bet>).
John
Uncle Davey
Użytkownik "John Catlow" <sur...@rubikondrop.pl> napisał w wiadomości
news:bhld24$i2r$1...@nemesis.news.tpi.pl...
Hi! Long time no see.
You still in Poznan?
Uncle Davey
Larry Trask
[AHD4 on 'harass']
> Educated usage appears to be evenly divided on the pronunciation
> of _harass_. In a recent survey 50 percent of the Usage Panel
> preferrred stressing the first syllable, while 50 percent
> preferred stressing the second. Curiously, the Panelists'
> comments appear to indicate that each side regards itself as
> an embattled minority.
This is just wonderful! Is there a fancy name for the state of
affairs in which both sides believe they are beleaguered minorities?
The second group would feel better if they watched more American cop
shows like _CSI_ and _Law and Order_. These, along with baseball
games, _Frasier_, and _Curb Your Enthusiasm_, are my chief sources of
American speech these days. The word 'harass' is very frequent on cop
shows, and it is *always* pronounced "her ass".
> i might have told the story here of chomsky's course at the 1966
> linguistic institute (at ucla), which was essentially a compressed
> version of the forthcoming Sound Pattern of English. chomsky
> repeatedly referred to "the caRESS/haRASS" set of examples and
> was baffled by the little wave of titters that ran through the
> (gigantic, for linguistics) audience.
Arnold, with your collection of stories, you ought to write a book.
But who ever claimed that Chomsky had any sensitivity for language?
Isn't he on record as maintaining that English 'respectively'
sentences are part of our biologically endowed language faculty? ;-)
While I'm here, I might mention that I stress the word 'vagaries' on
the second syllable. Does that upset anybody? There are no bounds
upon my linguistic fossilization.
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
>
> arnold
Phil Healey
> zwi...@Turing.Stanford.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) wrote in message news:<bhiukg$p57$1...@news.Stanford.EDU>...
>
>
> While I'm here, I might mention that I stress the word 'vagaries' on
> the second syllable. Does that upset anybody?
You jerk!
--
Phil Healey
Somewhere in cyberspace
Arnold Zwicky
larry trask <R.L....@sussex.ac.uk> considers "haRASS":
>zwi...@Turing.Stanford.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) wrote in message
>news:<bhiukg$p57$1...@news.Stanford.EDU>...
>[AHD4 on 'harass']
>> Educated usage appears to be evenly divided on the
>> pronunciation of _harass_. In a recent survey 50 percent of
>> the Usage Panel preferrred stressing the first syllable, while
>> 50 percent preferred stressing the second. Curiously, the
>> Panelists' comments appear to indicate that each side regards
>> itself as an embattled minority.
>This is just wonderful! Is there a fancy name for the state of
>affairs in which both sides believe they are beleaguered minorities?
wonderful indeed. i don't know of a term for this, but i'd love to
have one.
>The second group would feel better if they watched more American cop
>shows like _CSI_ and _Law and Order_. These, along with baseball
>games, _Frasier_, and _Curb Your Enthusiasm_, are my chief sources
>of American speech these days. The word 'harass' is very frequent
>on cop shows, and it is *always* pronounced "her ass".
well, that's always been my pronunciation, so i don't really notice.
i do notice the "harris" variant, though.
>> i might have told the story here of chomsky's course...
>Arnold, with your collection of stories, you ought to write a book.
i'm writing (for some value of "writing") quite a few books, and
some of them aren't even about linguistics, but i'm not sure where
i could fold this story in.
>But who ever claimed that Chomsky had any sensitivity for language?
not a lot of sensitivity required here. all he was reporting on was
the pronunciation he uses for this one word. i can't see any reason
to impugn that. especially since i *agree* with him!
>While I'm here, I might mention that I stress the word 'vagaries' on
>the second syllable. Does that upset anybody? There are no bounds
>upon my linguistic fossilization.
well, you live in the right country for that, though possibly not in
the right century.
Queen:
Chancellor unwary,
It's highly necessary
Your tongue to teach
Respectful speech--
Your attitude to vary!
Your badinage so airy,
Your manner arbitrary,
Are out of place
When face to face
With an influential Fairy!
Chorus of Men:
We never knew
We were talking to
An influential Fairy!
Lord Chancellor:
A plague on this vagary!
I'm in a nice quandary!
Of hasty tone
With dames unknown
I ought to be more chary!
It seems that she's a fairy
From Andersen's Library,
And I took her for
The proprietor
Of a Ladies' Seminary.
ok, there's a certain amount of accentual license in there.
arnold, an influential fairy
Peter T. Daniels
That is of course the reference that came to mind, but I believe you'll
find that Gilbert italicized the wrongly stressed syllables, indicating
that va GA ry was not current in the 1880s either.
Brian M. Scott
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>> >While I'm here, I might mention that I stress the word 'vagaries' on
>> >the second syllable. Does that upset anybody? There are no bounds
>> >upon my linguistic fossilization.
>> well, you live in the right country for that, though possibly not in
>> the right century.
[...]
>> Lord Chancellor:
>> A plague on this vagary!
>> I'm in a nice quandary!
>> Of hasty tone
>> With dames unknown
>> I ought to be more chary!
>> It seems that she's a fairy
>> From Andersen's Library,
>> And I took her for
>> The proprietor
>> Of a Ladies' Seminary.
>> ok, there's a certain amount of accentual license in there.
>That is of course the reference that came to mind, but I believe you'll
>find that Gilbert italicized the wrongly stressed syllables, indicating
>that va GA ry was not current in the 1880s either.
My edition has 'libr_a_ry' (i.e., with italicized <a>) but no
other italicization. OED1 has only va GA ry.
Brian
Bruce Tober
<rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> on Thu, 14 Aug 2003 wrote:
>But another thing is that I'm pretty dead sure that older New York city
>speakers have a sharper tour/tore difference.
>
Not this one. I can neither see nor hear a difference in the
pronunciation of the two words and don't think I've ever noticed one.
--
| Bruce Tober, <t...@star-dot-star.co.uk> , <http://www.star-dot-star.co.uk> |
| UK, +44-780-374-8255 (Mobile) +44-121-553-4284 (land) |
Peter T. Daniels
If we consider the prosody more carefully, we find that each of the
_first_ lines of the couplets has normal stress, and each of the
_second_ lines is distorted:
Thanks to someone's unindicated snippage, one has to switch back and
forth between messages:
unwary/airy/X/fairy
necessary/arbitrary/quandary/library
... indicating that va GA ry ("X" in the chart) was indeed actually the
_normal_ pronunciation.
But this then raises the question of when the desyllabification of the
second group of words set in -- they're now necess'ry, arbit'ry,
quand'ry, libr'y in Brit. Would Gilbert have reversed so much of a trend
to go two steps back to a wrongly stressed spelling-pronunciation, or
would he simply have shifted stress to a US-style extant but unstressed
syllable?
Peter T. Daniels
>
> In message <Pine.GSO.4.53.0...@alumni.wesleyan.edu>, R F
> <rfon...@mail.wesleyan.edu> on Thu, 14 Aug 2003 wrote:
> >But another thing is that I'm pretty dead sure that older New York city
> >speakers have a sharper tour/tore difference.
> >
>
> Not this one. I can neither see nor hear a difference in the
> pronunciation of the two words and don't think I've ever noticed one.
>
> --
>
> | Bruce Tober, <t...@star-dot-star.co.uk> , <http://www.star-dot-star.co.uk> |
An "older New York [C]ity speaker" from "star-dot-star.co.uk"?
Larry Trask
[on Arnold Zwicky's G&S verse]
> My edition has 'libr_a_ry' (i.e., with italicized <a>) but no
> other italicization. OED1 has only va GA ry.
Indeed. Once again, the pronunciation of 'vagary' with the stress on
the second syllable is simply the pronunciation I grew up with, and
initial stress was widely regarded as a blunder when I was young -- a
bad guess by people who had only encountered the word in writing, much
like 'PAP-@-r@s' for 'papyrus'.
But now initial stress is the norm, and again my pronunciation
apparently sounds strange or pretentious or worse to some of you.
And, of course, your initial stress still sounds uneducated to me. ;-)
In case I haven't complained about this lately, I still don't have a
functioning office at work, and so I still can't get at most of my
reference books. But the three British dictionaries I have at home
all give both pronunciations of 'vagary', with initial stress given
first. But there's no doubt that initial stress is now the norm in
Britain. I probably haven't heard the word pronounced more than
twenty times in the last twenty years or so, but I don't think I've
heard anyone else pronounce it with penultimate stress -- though I
know a few speakers of conservative tastes who probably do pronounce
the word like me.
The lesson I draw from all such observations is that language change
can be *fast*.
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
Larry Trask
omitted an obvious point: neutralizations before /r/.
Accents in both England and North America exhibit various vowel
neutralizations before a historical /r/ -- sometimes the same ones,
sometimes different ones. But there's one set of neutralizations
which is specifically General American, I think.
Most varieties of General American have a three-way neutralization
before /r/, so that all of 'marry', 'merry' and 'Mary' become
homophones. This doesn't happen in England, and it doesn't usually
happen on the east coast of the States, in my experience.
So, just as Michael Moore and Sir Thomas More get the same surname in
the spoken English of England, the humorist Dave Barry and the actress
Halle Berry get the same surname in most of the States.
Larry Trask
R.L....@sussex.ac.uk
Mark J. Reed
> But the three British dictionaries I have at home
> all give both pronunciations of 'vagary', with initial stress given
> first.
Mirriam-Webster gives no less than six pronunciations:
['vej.g@.r\i], [v@.'gE`.r\i], [v@.'g&`.r\i],
[vej.'gE`.r\i], [vej.'g&`.r\i], ['v&.g@`.r\i]
I've personally never heard anything but the first one.
-Mark
Bruce Tober
I'm an expat yank.
--
| Bruce Tober, <t...@star-dot-star.co.uk> , <http://www.star-dot-star.co.uk> |
Brian M. Scott
Trask) wrote:
>b.s...@csuohio.edu (Brian M. Scott) wrote in message news:<3f3ea409...@enews.newsguy.com>...
>[on Arnold Zwicky's G&S verse]
>> My edition has 'libr_a_ry' (i.e., with italicized <a>) but no
>> other italicization. OED1 has only va GA ry.
>Indeed. Once again, the pronunciation of 'vagary' with the stress on
>the second syllable is simply the pronunciation I grew up with, and
>initial stress was widely regarded as a blunder when I was young -- a
>bad guess by people who had only encountered the word in writing, much
>like 'PAP-@-r@s' for 'papyrus'.
Or my favorite, 'AW-ree' for 'awry'. I didn't precisely grow up
with any pronunciation of 'vagary' -- I very rarely heard the
word at all -- but I've a faint memory of being corrected from
'VAY-g@-ry' to 'v@-GEH-ry\ the first time I actually used it.
That would probably have been ~45 years ago.
[...]
Brian
Brian M. Scott
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
That's thanks to my *indicated* snippage -- indicated, as always,
by '[...]'.
>unwary/airy/X/fairy
>necessary/arbitrary/quandary/library
It's a little more complicated than that, I think. OED1 shows
both quan-DEH-ry and QUAN-d@-ry, in that order. If <necessary>
and <arbitrary> had something like their usual U.S.
pronunciations, with strong secondary stress on the penult, only
<library> would have had a normal pronunciation that truly
violated the metre; this accounts nicely for the fact that it's
the only one with italicization. It's still true, though, that
all four second-line rhymes are in one way or another 'iffier'
than the words in the first lines.
>... indicating that va GA ry ("X" in the chart) was indeed actually the
>_normal_ pronunciation.
>But this then raises the question of when the desyllabification of the
>second group of words set in -- they're now necess'ry, arbit'ry,
>quand'ry, libr'y in Brit. Would Gilbert have reversed so much of a trend
>to go two steps back to a wrongly stressed spelling-pronunciation, or
>would he simply have shifted stress to a US-style extant but unstressed
>syllable?
Brian
LEE Sau Dan
Larry> Today, if I hear someone with an English accent who
Larry> pronounces /hw-/, I know at once that he is a Scotsman who
Larry> has carefully acquired an English accent.
>> I'll make you wrong. I like to pronounce the /hw-/, and I do
>> pronounce it. Guess what accent I have?
Peter> Chinese?
This sound is foreign to Cantonese.
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦(Big5) ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ)
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
David Thomas
<pet...@sbcglobal.net> writes:
>Yes, pretentious. :)
>
>If it makes you feel any better, I don't have the cot/caught merger. Also,
>I pronounce some French-origin words in a French way, for example, "en
>masse". I pronounce "croissant" in a partially French way, without the "t".
>
>Peter
Always [kwas:an] for me... people look at me strange when I ask for them.
- Vae
Aaron J. Dinkin
> zwi...@Turing.Stanford.EDU (Arnold Zwicky) wrote in message news:<bhiukg$p57$1...@news.Stanford.EDU>...
>
> [AHD4 on 'harass']
>
>> Educated usage appears to be evenly divided on the pronunciation
>> of _harass_. In a recent survey 50 percent of the Usage Panel
>> preferrred stressing the first syllable, while 50 percent
>> preferred stressing the second. Curiously, the Panelists'
>> comments appear to indicate that each side regards itself as
>> an embattled minority.
>
> This is just wonderful! Is there a fancy name for the state of
> affairs in which both sides believe they are beleaguered minorities?
Bert Vaux of U.Wisc. uses the term "schizo-prestige" for a related
phenomenon: "agreement that there is a prestigious form and a stigmatized
form, but no agreement on which is which". (His example is the two
pronunciations of "often".) I'd guess that most cases of the "harass"
state of affairs are also cases of schizo-prestige.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
David Thomas
<mark...@mail.com> writes:
Similar... all the second-stress sounds very strange to me. But, then again,
my parents are stereotypically 'uneducated' (neither completed high school),
*and* we're from West Virginia... so perhaps that's not so odd after all.
I have to admit, though, I'm not sure where I stress this word, and I've just
been labeled weird because I'm sitting in front of the computer pronouncing it
seventy different ways trying to figure out just where I'm stressing it, but I
think it's on the first syllable... it's just weak stress.
- Vae
Mark Barratt
[...]
> But this then raises the question of when the desyllabification of the
> second group of words set in -- they're now necess'ry, arbit'ry,
> quand'ry, libr'y in Brit.
The rest, yes, but I can't agree about "necessary" - I find the "/sr/"
cluster particularly difficult to pronounce (don't you?), so I know
that's not my natural pronunciation of it. The schwa between the /s/
and the /r/ maight be short, but it's definitely four syllables.
But then I found out recently that I'm the only one in the world who
pronounces "secretary" as four syllables, so perhaps it's just me. I'm
actually unsure abought my pronunciation of "library". It does seem to
be three syllables, but I think it might tend towards /lib@ry/ (cf.
"febuary" and American "interduce")
--
Mark Barratt
http://freespace.virgin.net/wv8.mark
Peter T. Daniels
?? /'sekr@,teriy/ ['sEkr@,tErij]
/lib@ry/ can't possibly be right; even if you write the vowels the way
we expect to see them, /layb@riy/, where do you put the stress?
Why do you want there to be a cluster in /'ne.si"s.riy/? (where <.>
marks syllable boundary.)
Larry Trask
[PTD]
> > But this then raises the question of when the desyllabification of the
> > second group of words set in -- they're now necess'ry, arbit'ry,
> > quand'ry, libr'y in Brit.
> The rest, yes, but I can't agree about "necessary" - I find the "/sr/"
> cluster particularly difficult to pronounce (don't you?), so I know
> that's not my natural pronunciation of it. The schwa between the /s/
> and the /r/ maight be short, but it's definitely four syllables.
Interesting. I would say that the three-syllable version of
'necessary' is practically universal in England.
The elimination of unstressed syllables goes further in England than
most Yanks would consider possible. The word 'temporary' comes out as
two syllables: 'TEMP-ree'. Then the related adverb has to come out as
something which doesn't even sound like a piece of English: roughly
'TEMP-rlee',
with an impossible cluster in the second syllable.
And it is a terrible thing to hear an Englishman trying to pronounce
the word 'deteriorate'. Since no word is permitted to have five
syllables in England, drastic measures are called for. The usual
pronunciation among TV and radio broadcasters is 'deteriate', but
'deteerate' is not at all rare.
Larry Trask
lar...@sussex.ac.uk
Larry Trask
lar...@sussex.ac.uk
Brian M. Scott
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Mark Barratt wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> [...]
>> > But this then raises the question of when the desyllabification of the
>> > second group of words set in -- they're now necess'ry, arbit'ry,
>> > quand'ry, libr'y in Brit.
>> The rest, yes, but I can't agree about "necessary" - I find the "/sr/"
>> cluster particularly difficult to pronounce (don't you?), so I know
>> that's not my natural pronunciation of it. The schwa between the /s/
>> and the /r/ maight be short, but it's definitely four syllables.
No, I don't find /sr/ difficult, and in England I've even heard
['nEs:rI], in which the only trace of the middle *two* syllables
is the lengthened sibilant.
>> But then I found out recently that I'm the only one in the world who
>> pronounces "secretary" as four syllables, so perhaps it's just me.
You're not. That's the usual U.S. pronunciation.
>> I'm
>> actually unsure abought my pronunciation of "library". It does seem to
>> be three syllables, but I think it might tend towards /lib@ry/ (cf.
>> "febuary" and American "interduce")
>?? /'sekr@,teriy/ ['sEkr@,tErij]
>/lib@ry/ can't possibly be right; even if you write the vowels the way
>we expect to see them, /layb@riy/, where do you put the stress?
Probably /'layb@,riy/.
>Why do you want there to be a cluster in /'ne.si"s.riy/? (where <.>
>marks syllable boundary.)
When I give it the three-syllable pronunciation, I have a feeling
that the /s/ is ambisyllabic.
Brian
benlizross
>
> wv8....@virgin.net (Mark Barratt) wrote in message news:<8f30741a.03082...@posting.google.com>...
>
> [PTD]
>
> > > But this then raises the question of when the desyllabification of the
> > > second group of words set in -- they're now necess'ry, arbit'ry,
> > > quand'ry, libr'y in Brit.
>
> > The rest, yes, but I can't agree about "necessary" - I find the "/sr/"
> > cluster particularly difficult to pronounce (don't you?), so I know
> > that's not my natural pronunciation of it. The schwa between the /s/
> > and the /r/ maight be short, but it's definitely four syllables.
>
> Interesting. I would say that the three-syllable version of
> 'necessary' is practically universal in England.
>
> The elimination of unstressed syllables goes further in England than
> most Yanks would consider possible. The word 'temporary' comes out as
> two syllables: 'TEMP-ree'. Then the related adverb has to come out as
> something which doesn't even sound like a piece of English: roughly
> 'TEMP-rlee',
> with an impossible cluster in the second syllable.
>
temporarily
"Not easy, but must be faced. The four syllables must all be lightly
sounded and both the "o" and the "a" must be obscure; the "-ar-" must
must not be air [E@r] with stress, which is a tempting way to avoid the
difficulty, and a syllable must not be dropped, te'mporili, in the hope
that it will not be missed in the crowd."
Professor Arnold Wall (New Zealand English, 1959) tries to get kiwis to
face up to the moral challenge of RP.
Ross Clark
Peter T. Daniels
So by 1959 they'd forgotten all we'd done for them and no longer revered
all things American? How brief the cargo cults were!
Mark Barratt
> Mark Barratt wrote:
[...]
> > I'm
> > actually unsure abought my pronunciation of "library". It does seem to
> > be three syllables, but I think it might tend towards /lib@ry/
[...]
> ?? /'sekr@,teriy/ ['sEkr@,tErij]
Others have pointed out that the standard American pronunciation has
four syllables. British speakers (other than me) say "secretry"
/'sEkr@t,ri/
> /lib@ry/ can't possibly be right; even if you write the vowels the way
> we expect to see them, /layb@riy/, where do you put the stress?
Sorry, mind on other things. here's a correction: /'laIb@,ri/. I don't
know what you mean by "the way we expect to see them". Do the
character pairs "ay" and "iy" occur in some phonetic system I haven't
heard of? I'd be happy to learn another terminology than ASCII IPA.
--
Mark Barratt
Peter T. Daniels
You put orthography into slants. Your corrected phonemicization is
identical to the one I provided, except you used phonetic characters
rather than the usual phonemicization characters.
I'll use this suddenly revivified thread to post two recent observations
on British oddities.
Alistair Cooke's Letter from America last week, on the blackout,
referred twice to the "supervisor" of his apartment building. Has he
really been over here for 60+ years and not learned that the "super" is
actually the "superintendent," or is there a different word over there?
On the first of the three new Hetty Wainthropp Mysteries seen this week,
young Jeffrey's girlfriend Janet, who used to be a garage mechanic, got
a job as a "fork lift operative," rather than "operator." Is that usual?
(BTW Dominic Monaghan isn't entirely credible any more as the "teenage"
sidekick.)
Larry Trask
> I'll use this suddenly revivified thread to post two recent observations
> on British oddities.
>
> Alistair Cooke's Letter from America last week, on the blackout,
> referred twice to the "supervisor" of his apartment building. Has he
> really been over here for 60+ years and not learned that the "super" is
> actually the "superintendent," or is there a different word over there?
The usual British word is 'porter', or sometimes 'janitor'. I think
friend Cooke is simply confused.
> On the first of the three new Hetty Wainthropp Mysteries seen this week,
> young Jeffrey's girlfriend Janet, who used to be a garage mechanic, got
> a job as a "fork lift operative," rather than "operator." Is that usual?
> (BTW Dominic Monaghan isn't entirely credible any more as the "teenage"
> sidekick.)
Oh, I've seen 'operative' for 'operator' on many occasions over the
years, though usually in American English. It's a pompous term,
typically found in monstrosities like 'rodent-control operative' for
'ratcatcher'.
Larry Trask
lar...@sussex.ac.uk
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:<3F5341...@worldnet.att.net>...
>
> > I'll use this suddenly revivified thread to post two recent observations
> > on British oddities.
> >
> > Alistair Cooke's Letter from America last week, on the blackout,
> > referred twice to the "supervisor" of his apartment building. Has he
> > really been over here for 60+ years and not learned that the "super" is
> > actually the "superintendent," or is there a different word over there?
>
> The usual British word is 'porter', or sometimes 'janitor'. I think
> friend Cooke is simply confused.
He isn't usually ...
> > On the first of the three new Hetty Wainthropp Mysteries seen this week,
> > young Jeffrey's girlfriend Janet, who used to be a garage mechanic, got
> > a job as a "fork lift operative," rather than "operator." Is that usual?
> > (BTW Dominic Monaghan isn't entirely credible any more as the "teenage"
> > sidekick.)
>
> Oh, I've seen 'operative' for 'operator' on many occasions over the
> years, though usually in American English. It's a pompous term,
> typically found in monstrosities like 'rodent-control operative' for
> 'ratcatcher'.
But that wasn't originally a rodent-control operator.
Mark Barratt
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:<3F5341...@worldnet.att.net>...
>
> > I'll use this suddenly revivified thread to post two recent observations
> > on British oddities.
> >
> > Alistair Cooke's Letter from America last week, on the blackout,
> > referred twice to the "supervisor" of his apartment building. Has he
> > really been over here for 60+ years and not learned that the "super" is
> > actually the "superintendent," or is there a different word over there?
>
> The usual British word is 'porter', or sometimes 'janitor'. I think
> friend Cooke is simply confused.
Both of those sound pretty old-fashioned to me. "Building supervisor"
sounds much more likely, these days. And Cooke is, of course, writing
for a British audience. A "superintendent" here is a copper.
> > On the first of the three new Hetty Wainthropp Mysteries seen this week,
> > young Jeffrey's girlfriend Janet, who used to be a garage mechanic, got
> > a job as a "fork lift operative," rather than "operator." Is that usual?
> > (BTW Dominic Monaghan isn't entirely credible any more as the "teenage"
> > sidekick.)
>
> Oh, I've seen 'operative' for 'operator' on many occasions over the
> years, though usually in American English. It's a pompous term,
> typically found in monstrosities like 'rodent-control operative' for
> 'ratcatcher'.
I think "operative" is just as common as "operator" in such contexts
in Britain today (perhaps because it's easier to spell) with "fork
lift driver" being likelier still, and "goods relocation executive"
the least likely appellation.
--
Mark Barratt
Shouldn't such things be on aue, not sci.lang?