Emma Watson pronunciation
Bard Tison
host) had Emma Watson (British young actress) as a guest on his
show. She corrected him for calling her [wAtsn-] ([A] being
short-o sound) and insisted that her name was [w$tsn-] (where $
is some sound I don't know how to transcribe but sounds like
something like a mix of the u in pull, oo in pool, and a in
salt).
Now is this some sort of distinct sound in British speech?
What are some words that this would naturally occur in, etc.?
Don Phillipson
news:3DD4F7DA...@yahoo.com...
British RP for the first vowel in Watson
is the same as for the first vowel in bottom:
but extra latitude is allowed people to
pronounce their own proper names as they please.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)
dphil...@trytel.com.com.com.less2
Jonathan Jordan
a back rounded vowel - [A.]. I think the normal UK pronunciation of
Watson has this vowel (and not the "ah" sound of "father", which is a
different sound - [A:] or [a:] depending on region), so I would guess
that this is the vowel you heard.
I find what you describe surprising, however. I wonder if she
misheard the [A] as either a "cat" or a "cut" vowel? US "cot" can
sound very like "cat" to my ears.
Jonathan
Richard Fontana
Unlesss I'm dead mistaken, you were hearing /A./, the vowel phoneme most
BrE speakers use in "cot", realized in many British familiar accents as a
short [A.] (low rounded back vowel). This vowel occurs phonetically in
some AmE accents (despite confusing assertions in the AUE FAQ and ASCII
IPA tutorial materials to the contrary), but I think it is not often as
short a vowel as that used to realize the familiar BrE /A./, and it is not
typically used in the same class of words (or, if it is, the AmE speaker
will use it in a larger class of words).
I have an idea about what was going on there (I didn't see the show). Jay
Leno grew up in the Boston area, and I can remember that when he first
began to be nationally known (by appearing on _The Tonight Show Starring
Johnny Carson_, etc.) he had a substantially noticeable Boston accent,
though maybe less strong than a pre-1980 Kennedy or a Magliozzi.
As time went on, Leno became more of a national
figure and, as often happens, consciously or unconsciously de-regionalized
his accent. I think I've watched his show about two or three times in the
past 10 years (in contrast to D.J. Kim, who incidentally is reported to
be one of South Korea's leading hip-hop personalities) so I can't claim to
be an expert on his accent, but I can still hear the Boston in his speech,
I think.
Well, anyway, traditional Boston speakers are unusual in that they're both
CIC and FINB: cot is caught, but father does not rhyme with bother. So
maybe Emily Watson was trying to adjust to his accent, and maybe Leno,
having deregionalized his accent, was using some vowel in "Watson" that
seemed oddly fronted to Watson (as if he were trying too hard to
say "Wartson" with his earlier accent), and she would have expected
somehow that he'd use a vowel further back. This is interesting, because
I think one of the most noticeable features of present-day traditionalist
Boston-region accents is the use of a rounded back vowel for the merged
cot/caught phoneme. I'd expect a traditionalist Bostonian to say "Watson"
as something like [wA.@tsn-]. If Leno was determined to lose his Boston
accent, one of the first things he'd have to do is move that CIC vowel to
the center, or at least make it less rounded.
Matti Lamprhey
> Bard Tison wrote:
>
> > Last night on the Tonight Show, Jay Leno (Californian talk-show
> > host) had Emma Watson (British young actress) as a guest on his
> > show. She corrected him for calling her [wAtsn-] ([A] being
> > short-o sound) and insisted that her name was [w$tsn-] (where $
> > is some sound I don't know how to transcribe but sounds like
> > something like a mix of the u in pull, oo in pool, and a in
> > salt).
>
> > Now is this some sort of distinct sound in British speech?
> > What are some words that this would naturally occur in, etc.?
>
> Unlesss I'm dead mistaken, you were hearing /A./, the vowel phoneme most
> BrE speakers use in "cot", realized in many British familiar accents as a
> short [A.] (low rounded back vowel). This vowel occurs phonetically in
> some AmE accents (despite confusing assertions in the AUE FAQ and ASCII
> IPA tutorial materials to the contrary), but I think it is not often as
> short a vowel as that used to realize the familiar BrE /A./, and it is not
> typically used in the same class of words (or, if it is, the AmE speaker
I think Richard is on the money here. Another thing you need to bear in
mind is that Miss Watson is apparently beset at her (real) school by the
mocking reference to "No -- it's Wingardium LeviOHsa!", so pronunciation
correction has become something of a stock-in-trade for her. She probably
expected the correction of her name to raise a laugh.
Matti
Jacqui
> I think Richard is on the money here. Another thing you need to
> bear in mind is that Miss Watson is apparently beset at her (real)
> school by the mocking reference to "No -- it's Wingardium
> LeviOHsa!", so pronunciation correction has become something of a
> stock-in-trade for her. She probably expected the correction of
> her name to raise a laugh.
She's at school with the younger of my erstwhile stepdaughters. Nice
girl.
Jac
John Smith
>
> Last night on the Tonight Show, Jay Leno (Californian talk-show
> host) had Emma Watson (British young actress) as a guest on his
> show. She corrected him for calling her [wAtsn-] ([A] being
> short-o sound) and insisted that her name was [w$tsn-] (where $
> is some sound I don't know how to transcribe but sounds like
> something like a mix of the u in pull, oo in pool, and a in
She was probably just having some fun, but actually Watson is also an
American name and has an American pronunciation, as Emily very well
knows since she just did a completely fine American accent in "Red
Dragon."
Maybe she's getting even for the way the BBC people pronounced Dionne
Warwick's name.
\\P. Schultz
Sebastian Beach
wrote:
Snip.
>Maybe she's getting even for the way the BBC people pronounced Dionne
>Warwick's name.
Don't get me started. I n Houston I tried to get a taxi to take me to
the Warwick hotel, but the driver couldn't understand my rightpondian
pronounciation. I ended up in an hotel of a completely different name
where they disavowed any knowledge of my booking.
Took me an hour to get to the War-wick.
Sebastian Beach.