I am currently in the path of the hurricane about to pummel the Northeastern United States. We’re not entirely sure what the power situation is going to be for the next couple of days, which may or may not result in some light posting over at these parts.
In the meantime, I’m mulling over the interesting conversation about the Californian pronunciation of ‘almond’ that emerged in the comments of the last post!
Based on your title, I thought this post was going to be about the “stir it”-“turret” merger.
It used to be said they were always given girl’s names because they were her-icanes.
Ooooh!
Or is it hur-i-kun?
Are you British? Wiktionary gives that as the RP pronunciation.
No, I’m not British, but I’ve been hearing that pronunciation listening to PRI’s ‘The World’ radio program where British presenters are interviewing Americans about Hurricane Irene.
Curiously, I heard an American woman (from the South) on the radio who pronounced it hur-i-kun.
Yes; the RP (and, AFAIK, general British) pronunciation is /ˈhʌrɪkən/.
unrelated to the hurricane topic
but it occured to me after seeing these “maps” showing where your tongue is and what sound it produces
I am not a native speaker although I have learned enough to listen to podcasts etc. and whenever a guest with an unusual accent appears I must listen twice or more to understand what they say.
I don’t know about you native speakers but for me, an American saying “mock” is like an English saying “mark” and it takes a lot of my processing power to choose the approprate word to then process to my own language 🙂
So I guess could be fine if I could exercise somehow before I hear someone from e.g. New Zealand.
back to the main question – do you people know of a software that shows the map of mouth mentioned above,
where you can point to an area, click or unclick “rounded” option and hear what sound it produces?
I find it difficult to do this with my tongue
cheers trawicks, I can only tell American from British and unfortunately can’t appreciate those little details between cities but I like this blog anyway 🙂
I grew up in West Virginia saying “hur-i-kun” and then had to learn to say it like a genuine American (i.e. from Ohio). 😛
That is not the emoticon I typed.
Hey,
We think you might be interested in a little article that a writer of ours has written.
It’s about accents as a matter of fact, and how important it can be in our choice of music.
Take a look and tell us what you think.
Ohgawd, I completely posted in the wrong place. I commented on your ‘comment policy’ page (there’s probably something in your policy about doing that, right?) hah.
Click Here