Do you say potayto or potarto
Bath or Barth
Varze or Vaize
Plastic or Plarstic
How important is pronunciation where you live.
Varze or Vaize
Plastic or Plarstic
How important is pronunciation where you live.
Top | Newest First | Oldest First
Proper pronunciation in terms of full syllables and intact letters, yes, but I like to hear regional accents; and the British Isles has an extraordinarily rich range of them considering the geographically compact area.
Putting an "r" in "bath", "castle" and a few other words is a Southern English trait that disappears not far North of the Bristol Channel and the Thames. It is not in all words though - you might hear "sand-carstle" but never "sarnd-carstle". I have never heard anyone say "plarstic" either, yet I am a native and resident of the Southern English coast. And "potarto"??
My own accent is a slightly odd mix thanks to parents from the Midlands and in later years, mixing with friends from Yorkshire and Lancashire; giving me that "r-less" enunciation and occasional Northern traits such as "were" for "was", "stopping for "staying" in a place and the emphasis-suffix "it/that were".
NB: I write here of genuine voices. "Received Pronunciation" (think Brian Sewell or Jacob Rees-Mogg), "Estuary English" and gratuitous Americanisms like "guy" for all and anyone and the NHS' medical "specialties"; are all affectations.
I have noticed two recent curiosities I find irritating.
One is the fad for historians and novelists to describe long-past events only in the present tense. Weather-forecasters sometimes do that too, for the future. (Sunday is fine, Monday sees cloud from the West..." Pardon? It's still Friday!) The historians' term of excuse, the "Historical Present", is as daft as the effect itself.
The other is the increasingly common, hard "the" before a vowel ("thuh air, "thuh East"). Experimenting, I found it forces a clumsy glottal stop as awkward to enunciate as it to hear.
I regard good pronunciation as important [i]anywhere[/i], and in any language; but I like genuine accents and dialects. In the end what matters is clarity, concision with mellifluous diction and no affectation.
'
I end with an exchange with two young Northern English women friends of mine, arguing over the name of a local town.
"It's Cone!", said one, firmly.
"No - it's Col-n!" insisted her friend.
Real spelling? C-O-L-N-E.
This went on until I could stand it no longer. "If you two Lancashire lasses can't agree how to pronounce your own county's towns," I exclaimed in my Dorset/ Nottinghamshire wi' a bit o' Yorkshire, "what hope does a soft Southerner like me have of getting it right?"
Or should that be that [i]reet[/i] or [i]raaight[/i]? After all, we were some 200 miles North of the City of Bath-Without-An-R.
Putting an "r" in "bath", "castle" and a few other words is a Southern English trait that disappears not far North of the Bristol Channel and the Thames. It is not in all words though - you might hear "sand-carstle" but never "sarnd-carstle". I have never heard anyone say "plarstic" either, yet I am a native and resident of the Southern English coast. And "potarto"??
My own accent is a slightly odd mix thanks to parents from the Midlands and in later years, mixing with friends from Yorkshire and Lancashire; giving me that "r-less" enunciation and occasional Northern traits such as "were" for "was", "stopping for "staying" in a place and the emphasis-suffix "it/that were".
NB: I write here of genuine voices. "Received Pronunciation" (think Brian Sewell or Jacob Rees-Mogg), "Estuary English" and gratuitous Americanisms like "guy" for all and anyone and the NHS' medical "specialties"; are all affectations.
I have noticed two recent curiosities I find irritating.
One is the fad for historians and novelists to describe long-past events only in the present tense. Weather-forecasters sometimes do that too, for the future. (Sunday is fine, Monday sees cloud from the West..." Pardon? It's still Friday!) The historians' term of excuse, the "Historical Present", is as daft as the effect itself.
The other is the increasingly common, hard "the" before a vowel ("thuh air, "thuh East"). Experimenting, I found it forces a clumsy glottal stop as awkward to enunciate as it to hear.
I regard good pronunciation as important [i]anywhere[/i], and in any language; but I like genuine accents and dialects. In the end what matters is clarity, concision with mellifluous diction and no affectation.
'
I end with an exchange with two young Northern English women friends of mine, arguing over the name of a local town.
"It's Cone!", said one, firmly.
"No - it's Col-n!" insisted her friend.
Real spelling? C-O-L-N-E.
This went on until I could stand it no longer. "If you two Lancashire lasses can't agree how to pronounce your own county's towns," I exclaimed in my Dorset/ Nottinghamshire wi' a bit o' Yorkshire, "what hope does a soft Southerner like me have of getting it right?"
Or should that be that [i]reet[/i] or [i]raaight[/i]? After all, we were some 200 miles North of the City of Bath-Without-An-R.
Valentine · M
@ArishMell lol, you really took this Q seriously, didn’t you! Thank you. I do try to reach the parts other Qs can’t reach. I have succeeded!! Love your soon-to-be BA. Very thorough indeed.
A couple of things though. Re plarstic. You clearly haven’t met my beautiful innocent wife, or her family from Worcestershire (as I), who say plarstic with impunity. I cringe. But, she made it to being a magistrate, I didn’t.
The second thing, re potarto, or perhaps potahto, this is of course from a song Ella Fitzgerald made so famous.
Yes, let’s call the whole thing off.
😉
A couple of things though. Re plarstic. You clearly haven’t met my beautiful innocent wife, or her family from Worcestershire (as I), who say plarstic with impunity. I cringe. But, she made it to being a magistrate, I didn’t.
The second thing, re potarto, or perhaps potahto, this is of course from a song Ella Fitzgerald made so famous.
Yes, let’s call the whole thing off.
😉
This comment is hidden.
Show Comment
