Tag Archives: General American English (GenAm)

“Button” vs. “Butter”

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Ben

Apropos of a recent conversation in the comments, it’s worth noting that Americans generally pronounce /t/ in words like “button” and “Manhattan” in a different manner than one might expect. To take one contrasting example, Americans pronounce the word “butter” … Continue reading →

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Posted in American English | Tagged , | 32 Comments

NBC Pronunciation Standards

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Ben

While browsing in a book shop recently, I found a dusty manual titled NBC Handbook of Pronunciation. From the 1940’s through the early 1960’s, NBC published this dictionary of sorts establishing a “standard pronunciation” for newscasters. It is clear from the … Continue reading →

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Posted in American English | Tagged , | 49 Comments

Singing in Dialect, Part 2: When Brits Go GenAm

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Ben

Like many young urbanites in the 2000s, I was obsessed with Joy Division. I’m not sure why this two-decades defunct* band from Manchester touched a nerve, but touch a nerve it did. Yet I always found it perplexing the way … Continue reading →

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Posted in British English | Tagged , , , | 25 Comments

Pronunciation Mysteries: ‘Cinema’ and ‘Theatre’

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Ben

Today’s post can be filed in the ‘questions I don’t have answers to’ box.  Two words, closely related by subject, exhibit unusual variation in dialects of English. Both, incidentally, involve going to the movies: 1.) Theatre (or theater).* In General American English … Continue reading →

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Posted in English Phonetics | Tagged | 51 Comments

The Goose Room and the Foot Room

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Ben

Some differences in pronunciation cross traditional dialect boundaries. One such curio is the word ‘room,’ which has two common variants: one with the vowel in ‘goose,’ and the other with the ‘lax’ vowel in ‘foot.’ I use the vowel in … Continue reading →

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Posted in English Phonetics | Tagged , , | 18 Comments

Stating the Obvious About Standard English

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Ben

Like many language enthusiasts, I was dismayed by two recent New Yorker pieces implicitly criticizing the field of modern linguistics. The first was a negative review of Henry Hitching’s The Language Wars: A History of Proper English, the second a … Continue reading →

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Posted in American English | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

On Dictionaries & Pronunciation

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Ben

The fine folks over at Collins contacted me recently about their online dictionary. It’s in beta, but looks to be an excellent addition to a growing body of online word tools. I recommend checking it out here. Anyway, this got … Continue reading →

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Posted in English Phonetics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 41 Comments

I’m Hoarably Sorey

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Ben

Canadians (or those familiar with the Canadian accent), may recognize the weak pun in today’s title: ‘I’m horribly sorry‘ can sound to someone from the UK or elsewhere a bit like ‘I’m hoarably sorey.’ (I’m using ‘hoar’ to be family friendly; … Continue reading →

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Posted in American English | Tagged , , , | 39 Comments

American Ash

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Ben

It’s time for us to talk about ash. ‘Ash’ refers not to the product of burnt charcoal, but rather the ‘short-a’ vowel symbolized by æ in the International Phonetic Alphabet.  In both the British Received Pronunciation and General American dialects of English, this … Continue reading →

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Posted in American English | Tagged , , | 36 Comments

A Pronunciation Mystery: American ‘Father’

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Ben

Sometimes the most common words have the most illogical pronunciations. Such is the case with the American pronunciation of ‘father.’ It seems so self-evident this word is pronounced with a broad a (i.e. an ‘ah’ sound) that this fact barely … Continue reading →

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Posted in American English | Tagged | 77 Comments