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Question for people from the UK

I am an ignorant yank who needs help.

How do you pronounce SCONE?

Does it rhyme with stone?
Or does it rhyme with fawn?
Or...?

Thanks for your help. I eat them all the time but feel silly for not knowing how to say the word properly. I usually rhyme it with stone.

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LookingIn · M

There are two camps who won’t reconcile but the easy way to remember is …

When it’s on the plate it’s scone (rhyming with stone)
And when it’s eaten it’s scone (rhyming with gone) 😁

hunkalove · 61-69, M

Used to be a teashop here in Denver called Scones and Cones. The best corned beef and cabbage. I asked once if it should be Scones and Cons. They didn't know what I was talking about. Probably from New Joisey!

bijouxbroussard · F

@hunkalove There was once a shop in Kensington named “No Scone Unturned”. They were clearly rhyming it with “stone”. The scones themselves were delicious. I hated when they closed. 🙁

SW-User

It's a regional thing. It rhymes with cone in the south and gone in the North.

[image deleted]

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DrWatson · 70-79, M

@SW-User Travelling from place to place, ordering scones everywhere -- all in the name of science!

"I'll have one of those, uh, what do you call them?"

SW-User

@DrWatson I'd volunteer for that job. Now how do we pronounce fish and chips 🤔

Dshhh · M

@SW-User AWESOME MAP!

ElwoodBlues · M

Disclaimer: I'm not from the UK although I've visited several times.

[quote]The correct pronunciation of the British afternoon tea staple, scone, is an age-old dispute.

The UK’s leading etiquette expert, William Hanson, has set the record straight on many occasions but here is his answer once and for all.

Following etiquette, the correct pronunciation of scone is ‘skon’, to rhyme with ‘gone’, rather than ‘skone’ to rhyme with ‘bone’.[/quote]
https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/how-correctly-pronounce-scone-like-19553604

Scotland had a stone referred to as the "Coronation Stone" and also the "Stone of Scone"

In 1296 England’s King Edward I took the stone from Scotland to London; in 1996 Prime Minister John Major returned it. https://www.history.com/news/what-is-the-stone-of-scone

It is also pronounced ‘skon’, to rhyme with ‘gone’.

James57 · 61-69, M

It's pronounced "skon" as in "gone".
I grew up in the Midlands. It was never anything else and travelling around the UK, I don't recall it being anything else.

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daddybloke · 41-45, M

@ArishMell huge difference in dialect between the black country and Birmingham no one understands Nlack country the have their own words and are known locally as ( yam yams )

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@daddybloke Yet as I say, only a few miles or so apart! Then go 20 miles up the road to Derby and the accent is already changing to a more rounded one from the sharper, slightly sing-song West Midlands voice.

I recall one evening in the pub the barmaid talking to a man standing next to me, who had a recognisably Northe-Eastern accent. She identified him as from Middlesborough, as she was, not Newcastle - I could not tell the difference but they knew it.

I wonder if other countries have such a wide range of accents over such short distances?

James57 · 61-69, M

@ArishMell We always had pikelets, never crumpets. I only came across crumpets in latter years which are identical.
My parents and their parents were from Southern Birmingham but did not have what I would regard as a Brummagem accent which is more associated with the Black Country.

TheSirfurryanimalWales · 61-69, M

It rhymes with stone.
Some will say it rhymes with John.
Never rhymes with fawn.

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TheSirfurryanimalWales · 61-69, M

@bijouxbroussard fawn rhymes with spawn

John rhymes with Bonn.

Poppies · 61-69, F

@TheSirfurryanimalWales Fawn, spawn, John and Bonn all sound the same to me. Also Don and Dawn. Hock and hawk. My husband hears the differences. We grew up in different regions of the US.

Dshhh · M

@DrWatson i have heard fawn and john as the same in parts of the US

ArishMell · 70-79, M

The UK has an extraordinarily wide range of dialects and accents that can change noticeably over only a few tens of miles.

So you could hear [i]Scone[/i] as rhyming with [i]stone[/i], with a hard "o" ([i]scon[/i]) or even [i]scoon[/i] !

Not rhyming with [i]fawn[/i], though.

So please don't feel silly saying "scone" as it looks - many Britons do, depending where in the country they are from.

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

@ninalanyon Hmmm! I know America dominates computing, the Internet etc.; but I try to avoid affecting Americanisms - as I avoid affecting Latin or French phrases as was once the fashion in ages past among the arty types!

With one important difference: the names of things invented in those countries, such as respectively there the "transistor", the "aqueduct", the "metre".

Oh - and in British English, "~i[b]s[/b]ing" :-)

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@ArishMell I'm from the south west, the Oxford dictionary is my reference, it prefers -ize for words derived from Greek. Even Collins and Cambridge have started to accept those spellings.

See https://www.lexico.com/definition/summarize

As for program for computers, it has been program with one m for my whole life, it's not an Americanism. It would be an Americanism to use it instead of television programme though.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@ninalanyon I see: I take your point.

Dictionaries necessarily reflect contemporary use, rather than form it; though I think it a pity our own version of our own language is being taken over (like so many other things) by the USA.

Much more serious though is narrowing vocabulary, hence knowledge. About three years ago now, I think, the OED drew considerable justifiable criticism for its new children's edition rightly including many IT terms but wrongly expunging nature ones, like the ordinary names of common plants and animals.

SW-User

It rhymes with on

Entwistle · 56-60, M

Scone rhymes with 'Gone' where I'm from. Other places it rhymes with 'Cone'

Ghostinthemachine · M

Excellent question!

I believe it’s pronounced “mine”.

RuthW69 · 51-55, F

Lancashire say scon and Yorkshire say scone. Not sure of the rest.

MartinII · 70-79, M

@RuthW69 Well my mum was from Lancashire and she said scone - and made delicious ones!

SammyJo · 51-55, F

it's 'S' and 'Con'

☺️

SJD x

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

Not from the UK but there are alot of regional variation so you are probably correct somewhere regardless of what pronunciation you use. :)

Then you have the English vs Gaelic pronunciations.

comfi1 · 61-69, M

Coming from the northern half of the UK I say skon which is the corrrct pronounciation.

So there 😜

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@comfi1 Aye, and 'appen my Midlands parents always said "scone"!

Funny isn't it, regional accents being so different in a space less than 200 miles "high"! (Their Nottingham to Appleby-in-Westmoreland, perhaps.)

:-)

smiler2012 · 56-60

{@greenmountaingal] 😄 now that is a matter of opinion some say it one way some the other . i pronounce it as it rhymes with gone .

daddybloke · 41-45, M

i am from the UK and we can't settle that one ourselves lol ,both are used scone as in stone ans scon as in gone

ArtieKat · M

I'm from near Liverpool and most people around here would say "Skon", certainly now "skawn"

revenant · F

not from the UK, but it rythmes with stone. And they are delicious indeed.

SW-User

There are two Scones.
The one you eat - like fawn or gone.
The place - Skoon

nuddie · 61-69, M

Definitely rhymes with stone

basilfawlty89 · 31-35, M

Not from UK, but South African pronunciation for the most part is the same as the UK. We say scone as in John.

Gangstress · 41-45, F

From the UK.

https://voca.ro/1fDwtqhjrgRU

V00doo

SKON

SW-User

The truth is that people pronounce it either to rhyme with gone or to rhyme with phone and it depends on which part of the country you come from. So there's no right or wrong answer here.

SW-User

It rhymes with boone

Dshhh · M

@SW-User thats how my scots say it

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