Draught Pronunciation

[Jonelle Rycroft]

InAmerican English, draught is rarely used as a spelling variant of draft, except for one main setting: in reference to beer or the container from which it is poured. While the draft spelling is much more common for beer in American English, draught is sometimes used for imported beers or the beer "on draught" at American establishments that are either notably British or notably fancy. Otherwise, draught is strictly a British English variant.

The word draft (or draught) goes back to Middle English and is related to Old English dragan, meaning "to pull, draw, or drag," which is reflected in the word's semantic development relating to acts of pulling loads, drawing up plans, sketches, and money orders, and taking in beer, water, air, etc. It also sheds light on draughts as the name for the game of checkers in which pieces are "dragged" over a board. (The source of the American name of the game is the checkered pattern on the game board.)

As American English developed and became distinct from British English, use of draught lessened and draft replaced it in all its senses. A relatively recent development for draft in American English is the sports sense, referring to the system used by professional teams for the selection of new players. That sense dates to the late 1800s; the related sense referring to the selection of individuals for military service goes back to the early 1700s.

Currently, use of expressions like "fantasy draught," "team draught," and "player draught" haven't caught on, so if we were a betting dictionary (and we are), we'd bet that the sports sense will be adopted into British English as draft. Now, since you've done all this reading, time for a pint?

(English pronunciations of draught from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus and from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary, both sources Cambridge University Press)

We do not currently take reservations for parties smaller than 10 guests, but for larger parties and private events, we have a variety of options. Rates vary by location. Please reach out to us at least 14 days before your event at che...@dramanddraught.com. We would be happy to work with you to create a customized experience.

We are unable to accommodate cash bars with our private reservations. We also require the beverage minimums paired with each reservation. If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to us at che...@dramanddraught.com.

Sometimes our card system will have a pre-authorization charge that seems like it is a double charge. Please give it 3-5 days and if the charge is still there please reach out to che...@dramanddraught.com and provide us with the name of the cardholder, date of service, dollar amount, and card number so we can assist.

The objective of the Pronunciation Task Force is to develop normative specifications and best practices guidance collaborating with other W3C groups as appropriate, to provide for proper pronunciation in HTML content when using text to speech (TTS) synthesis. This document provides various user scenarios highlighting the need for standardization of pronunciation markup, to ensure that consistent and accurate representation of the content. The requirements that come from the user scenarios provide the basis for the technical requirements/specifications.

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at

This is a First Public Working Draft of Pronunciation User Scenarios by the Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group. It was initially developed by the Pronunciation Task Force to provide various user scenarios highlighting the need for standardization of pronunciation markup, to ensure that consistent and accurate representation of the content. The requirements that come from the user scenarios provide the basis for the technical requirements/specifications.

To comment, file an issue in the W3C pronunciation GitHub repository. If this is not feasible, send email to public-pro...@w3.org (subscribe, archives). Comments are requested by 14 October 2019. In-progress updates to the document may be viewed in the publicly visible editors' draft.

Publication as a First Public Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

This document was produced by a group operating under the W3C Patent Policy. The group does not expect this document to become a W3C Recommendation. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

As part of the Accessible Platform Architectures (APA) Working Group, the Pronunciation Task Force (PTF) is a collaboration of subject matter experts working to identify and specify the optimal approach which can deliver reliably accurate pronunciation across browser and operating environments. With the introduction of the Kurzweil reading aid in 1976, to the more sophisticated synthetic speech currently used to assist communication as reading aids for the visually impaired and those with reading disabilities, the technology has multiple applications in education, communication, entertainment, etc. From helping to teach spelling and pronunciation in different languages, Text-to-Speech (TTS) has become a vital technology for providing access to digital content on the web and through mobile devices.

The challenges that TTS presents include but are not limited to: the inability to accommodate regional variation and presentation of every phoneme present throughout the world; the incorrect determination by TTS of the pronunciation of content in context, and; the current inability to influence other pronunciation characteristics such as prosody and emphasis.

The purpose of developing user scenarios is to facilitate discussion and further requirements definition for pronunciation standards developed within the PTF prior to review of the APA. There are numerous interpretations of what form user scenarios adopt. Within the user experience research (UXR) body of practice, a user scenario is a written narrative related to the use of a service from the perspective of a user or user group. Importantly, the context of use is emphasized as is the desired outcome of use. There are potentially thousands of user scenarios for a technology such as TTS, however, the focus for the PTF is on the core scenarios that relate to the kinds of users who will engage with TTS.

User scenarios, like Personas, represent a composite of real-world experiences. In the case of the PTF, the scenarios were derived from interviews of people who were end-consumers of TTS, as well as submitted narratives and industry examples from practitioners. There are several formats of scenarios. Several are general goal or task-oriented scenarios. Others elaborate on richer context, for example, educational assessment.

Ultimately, the quality and variation of TTS rendering by assistive technologies vary widely according to a user's context. The following user scenarios reinforce the necessity for accurate pronunciation from the perspective of those who consume digitally generated content.

The advent of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for the management and editing of text content has given rise to content creators not requiring technical expertise beyond the ability to operate a text editing application such as Microsoft Word. The following scenario summarizes the general use, accompanied by a hypothetical application.

In the educational assessment field, providing accurate and concise pronunciation for students with auditory accommodations, such as text-to-speech (TTS) or students with screen readers, is vital for ensuring content validity and alignment with the intended construct, which objectively measures a test takers knowledge and skills. For test administrators/educators, pronunciations must be consistent across instruction and assessment in order to avoid test bias or impact effects for students. Some additional requirements for the test administrators, include, but are not limited to, such scenarios:

Technical standards for software development assist organizations and individuals to provide accessible experiences for users with disabilities. The final user scenarios in this document are considered from the perspective of those who design and develop software.

The English language is full of confusing words that mix up native and nonnative speakers alike. English is also ripe for dialectical differences, considering its widespread use as an international language and its de facto use in many countries.

Draft, which is a phonetic respelling of draught, is the preferred spelling for all senses in American English. There is no distinction between spellings and meanings, as American English uses draft in all senses.

Late Middle English had two phonemes /a/ and /aː/, differing only in length. The /a/ ("short A") was found in words such as cat [kat] and trap [trap], and also before /r/ in words such as start [start]. The /aː/ ("long A") was found in words such as face [faːs], and before /r/ in words such as scare [skaːr]. This long A was generally a result of Middle English open syllable lengthening. For a summary of the various developments in Old and Middle English that led to these vowels, see English historical vowel correspondences.

As a result of the Great Vowel Shift, the long [aː] of face was raised, initially to [ː] and later to [ɛː]. After 1700 it was raised even further, and then diphthongized, leading to the modern standard pronunciation /eɪ/. Additionally, the short [a] of trap was fronted to []; this change became accepted in standard speech during the 17th century. Today there is much regional variation in the realization of this vowel; in RP there has been a recent trend for it to be lowered again to a fully open [a].

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