American Pronunciation

[Station X]

Originally Posted by The Philpott

...Anyone remember the war comedy where German spies were being trained for action in the UK?

"The Goose Steps Out".

[dave walsh]

If I'm following that joke the pronounciation must have been very rouw

Dave

[Sinewave]

It is confusing. Here are a few which always baffle me.

English: Letter
American: Ledder

English: Bottle
American: Baddle

English: Lock
American: Lack

[M0FYA Andy]

Thanks for all the discussion, obviously the general subject interests many of us!

One of the things which always grates with me is the 'glottal stop', ironically probably called a 'glo'all stop' by its users! It seems to be becoming very common here in the North-west these days, I don't recall it fifty years ago. Presumably the influence of so-called celebrities.

[Sinewave]

Talking of the glottal stop you mention, there is an interesting and amusing series of videos on youtube by an authour who calls himself Korean Billy.

He was over here at University and was always confused over the different dialects he encountered over here, different ways of saying things as well as regional words which aren't used anywhere else.

[emeritus]

Other languages also have regional/national variations. Spanish as spoken in Mexico and the South American countries, while mutually intelligible, differ in pronunciation from each other and from standard Castilian Spanish. Apparently this reflects the different parts of Spain from which the original colonisers came. A North German I know finds it very difficult to understand the German spoken by the locals in Munich. When I was being taught German at school, we had two different language assistants in different terms to improve our diction. The guy from the north pronounced "ich" (I) as "ik", whereas the lady from the south said "ish". I did once try my German to get put through to a Brit who was working in Germany, and the guy told me his secretary had thought I might be Swiss. At the time I took this as a compliment but later found out that many Germans find the Swiss accent rather comical!

[AC/HL]

It works for other Nationals too. Remember Candid Camera, and Jonathan Routh portraying an Australian wanting to get to Looga Barooga (Loughborough)

[Craig Sawyers]

Originally Posted by Refugee

The American dialect has developed from a mixture of the west coasts of England and Scotland with a big contribution from Ireland.
It has developed for 200 years to form the dialect we hear today.
The same goes for Australia.

I'm currently reading a book called "The Fatal Shore" about the transportation of convicts to Australia. A significant proportion of the total of 160,000 transported were Irish, who were convicted for being in uprisings. They were treated absolutely appallingly, worse than any other convict (and they were treated dreadfully) and died in significant numbers, but the influence to the current Australian dialect has its roots in those Irish.

By Convict, many of them were guilty of ridiculously small crimes that would not even warrant a fine nowadays.

[Junk Box Nick]

The American 'gotten' retains the older English ending which probably has Germanic origins. We (British English speakers) have lost the ending in this instance.

Henry Higgins was wrong when he complained that "In America they haven't used [English] for years."

[barretter]

Originally Posted by Maarten

I'm not sure I agree with the dictionary as besides French influences, Roman influences were seen in the UK as well. Possibly both the French and English words were derived from Latin.

No, you should believe the Oxford dictionaries, they are very serious books! The Middle English (language of Chaucer) word for solder was "soudour", derived from the Old French "soudure", but there was a movement in the 15th and 16th centuries to reform English spelling so that words derived from Latin via Old French reflected their Latin origin. Hence "doute" became "doubt" because the original Latin was "dubitum" and "soudour" became "solder" because the original Latin was "solidare". We still don't pronouce the "b" in "doubt" and probably the people who emigrated to the USA still pronounced "solder" as "soudour".

[yesnaby]

'the emergency room', as if there is only one.

[TrevorG3VLF]

The weather woman Carol has very good pronounciation and the Nationwide adverts an excellent speaker. I moved to Derbyshire about 50 years ago and the language has changed from the local dialect to slovenly suvern. Ge' ow of ik. I put this down to poor children's programs.

[bluepilot]

An American I once knew often talked about "barks". Nothing to do with dogs but a cardboard container for putting things in. It's not just the pronunciation. I was once informed by an American phone operator that a phone line was not "operatic". That pleased me as I hate opera. Then there was a conference I attended where after several Americans had spoken, an English speaker explained that "the word gentlemen is 'transport'. 'Transportation' is when you send convicts to Australia".
I was once in a bar in Los Angeles with a German colleague and tried to order a beer. The bar keeper didn't understand me. I would have thought that being in a bar, "beer " would be one word that he might understand but after several attempts I gave up. Then my German colleague explained that "he vants a beer" and the barman understood immediately.
BTW I come originally from Saint Ives, known by locals as Snives. It's just down the road from Neednth.

[Radio Wrangler]

I'm always amused by news reports that someone's place has been burglarized.

I wonder how the burglarizer got in?

Oh, well, it's probably an equal score on illogicality and irregularities in language and pronunciation. Strange pronunciation of place names serves an important purpose, it makes 'comers-in' very obvious.

Slaith-wait. yeah, that's it. Everyone's heard of that one, but not far away the annual show at Kirk-heaton is 'Yetton rant' if you're one of the in-crowd.

David

['LIVEWIRE?']

The comments in post # 20, reminded me of that old advert for Cockburn's port, in which the non-english speaking character pronounces 'sock' as So and 'clock' as clo That aside, I do feel that some American spellings, e.g. 'Thru', 'Plow', favor and color, are more logical than the English ones, although I fail to see the need for words like 'Transportation', 'Burglarizing', and the like.

[Station X]

My pet hate is native English speakers using the Australian rising inflection.

[M0FYA Andy]

I think 'Thru', 'Plow', favor and color are horrible, I sincerely hope their use doesn't spread to Britain!

[Station X]

This very website is in my "Favorites".

[Maarten]

Originally Posted by barretter

No, you should believe the Oxford dictionaries, they are very serious books! The Middle English (language of Chaucer) word for solder was "soudour", derived from the Old French "soudure", but there was a movement in the 15th and 16th centuries to reform English spelling so that words derived from Latin via Old French reflected their Latin origin. Hence "doute" became "doubt" because the original Latin was "dubitum" and "soudour" became "solder" because the original Latin was "solidare". We still don't pronouce the "b" in "doubt" and probably the people who emigrated to the USA still pronounced "solder" as "soudour".

Thanks for that! I missed that the link in question was to the Oxford dictionary or I wouldn't have doubted it to begin with. This perfectly explains the Latin-like spelling. Never knew or thought of that.

[G8HQP Dave]

My pet hate is the mis-pronunciation of the word "the".

Yes. It really grates, especially when done by people who really ought to know better such as BBC journalists. I don't particularly associate it with Americans; it seemed to start with poorly educated English people but now is spreading out.

One of the things which always grates with me is the 'glottal stop', ironically probably called a 'glo'all stop' by its users!

As a native user of the glottal stop I must spring to its defence, but users ought always to be aware that there is an alternative pronunciation which uses the 't' properly and this form should be used on formal occasions. Strangely, the wrong way of saying 'the' before a vowel sound almost adds a mini-glottal stop into the speech.