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Tag Archives: phonetics
Mother Goose Rhymes (When Accents Collide)
Years ago, I was in a pub discussing a subject I can’t recall. A Dublin acquaintance asked a question that sounded like ‘Was he in coat?’ ‘In coat?’ Was this a dialect term I’d never heard? Did he mean ‘Was he … Continue reading
British ‘LOT’, 2012
The last post inspired a brief debate in the comments section about the LOT vowel (i.e. the ‘o’ in ‘not,’ ‘Todd,’ and ‘rot’) in contemporary British English. The question, it seems, is whether this sound has shifted closer to the vowel space … Continue reading
-ness: A Darn Productive Morpheme
The English lexicon contains numerous nouns formed by adding the suffix ‘-ness‘ to an adjective: ‘weakness,’ ‘fullness,’ ‘brightness,’ and countless others. And at least in American English, we find creative new uses of ‘-ness’ all the time, which seem to be … Continue reading
The Englishness of H-Dropping
Longtime readers may notice that I rarely discuss h-dropping. Novices might remember this accent feature from some unfortunate community theatre production of ‘My Fair Lady‘ in which the actress playing Eliza Doolittle bleats ”enry ‘iggins!’ Systematic h-droppers drop the letter ‘h’ at … Continue reading
Posted in British English Tagged class and accent, Cockney, Northern English accents, phonetics 37 Comments
Sean Connery’s /s/
Reader Jason Reid wrote me recently with a thoughtful question about a notorious celebrity quirk of pronunciation: Comedians often imitate Sean Connery by pronouncing /s/ like /?/ (as in she). Does Sean Connery really not make a distinction between those … Continue reading
The Importance (or not?) of Vowels
Linguist Will Styler has a smart, funny website titled ‘The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Vowels.‘ In the page ‘The Anti-Vowel Agenda,’ he elucidates his gripe: Yet every day, vowels are bought and sold on national television, subjected … Continue reading
‘Going to’ Contractions
The phrase ‘going to‘ has two meanings in English. It can, of course, refer to one’s intent to make a physical journey (as in ‘I am going to the store’). But it can also refer to the intent to do … Continue reading
Lax Vowels for English Learners
A bit of phonetics humor made its way into a recent episode of the TV show Modern Family. Gloria, a Spanish-accented character from Colombia, consistently confuses her nephew’s name, ‘Luke,’ with the word ‘look.’ The misunderstanding stems from ‘look’ using … Continue reading
On Dictionaries & Pronunciation
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
American Offglide
The English language is notorious for its diphthongs. A diphthong, as many of you know, is two vowels combined into a single sound, as in the ‘i‘ in ‘kite’ or the ‘ou‘ in ‘mouth.’ Nearly every vowel of English can be … Continue reading