Be Excellent To Each Other

Let's settle this.

Easily proven. You may not like me saying that you are wrong, but dictionaries also say you are wrong.

whore (hôr) (link)
haw (hô) (link)

One of these words (whore) has an r sound at the end of it. The other (haw) doesn't.

All this from a Grim funny.

I'm intrigued that you think you can prove how I pronounce something.

Record and post your voice

Mimi did it by writing French, or something.

Old ladies in Liverpool seriously pronounce it 'hoo-er'.

Easily proven that the words are pronounced differently. You might pronounce either one of them 'chocolate cheesecake', that doesn't mean that the words have the same pronunciation. Looking at the dictionary pronunciation, I pronounce them both correctly. If you pronounce both words the same then you must be pronouncing either one or both of them 'incorrectly'.

Obviously, accent accounts for a lot, but the words do not have the same pronunciation, even if you or others give them the same pronunciation. But you knew that and are just being a silly.

I generally pronounce it 'your mum'.

Ah, but are not the dictionary pronunciations entirely arbitrary though? It's not like they polled the entire English speaking world...

No, of course not, but dictionaries are the understood authorities on language, so if any pronunciation is to be thought of as 'proper' then they would be the obvious authority to fill that role.

What do you call a male donkey prostitute?

HEEHAW

I don't like how Americans pronounce ‘horror’. That is all. See also: ‘mirror’.

But are they really? I mean, do they really give a toss? I think the squiggly stuff next to the word is only supposed to be a guide.

You can pin down the meaning of a word pretty well, I do not believe you can pin down a pronunciation, because there's no way to make value judgements. Is the way a yorkshireman pronounces a word better than intrinsically superior to the way a californian or Pakistani pronounces it? Of course not. No one pronunciation is better, so which one is official? The one that the person writing the squiggles uses.


Here's something else: the word dord, that famously doesn't exist. Well when that was erroneously printed in the dictionary, guess what? It had a pronunciation. The word doesn't exist. The person writing the entry certainly never heard the word used. How can it have an 'official pronunciation'?

Stop being such a dord.

What's that Myp? You're talking gibberish. Again.

I saw a squirrrrrrl in a forrrrrst. It was on a turrrrt while looking in a mirrrrrr. Oh the horrrrrr.

Dordy brrrstrrrd

I love the joke in 30 Rock where no on knows what one of the characters is saying when she keeps saying the name of a film, because it's Rural Juror.

If you're Canadian then the longest single syllable word in English is "squirrelled".

If you're not, then it is "strengths".

Possibly.

Scrounged.

That's what I mean, yes.

I would pronounce that scroun-jed.

Verily.

You tit.

Scroun jed? What... just..... Jesus.

Maybe he's Shakespeare.

Very young children, often emphasise the "ed" at the end of words, even when there shouldn't be one there, where do they get that from, as apart from naked, you don't normally pronounce it that way?

"My brother hitted me in the arm" etc

Malc

'To hit' is an irregular verb. '-ed' is a common ending of the third person singular of many regular verbs, so it somewhat makes sense for kids to treat 'hit' as if it conjugated the same way as a lot of regular verbs do.

The Scottish Cabal whisper to them in the streets.

Yeah, but surely they are doing it through copying, and yeah lots of words have an ed on the end, but most of them rhyme with baked as opposed to naked don't they? or does it depend on wether the verb ends in an e?

Hmmm

Malc

Indeed. As Dimmers has said, English scholars believe that as recently as a few centuries ago all those -ed words were pronounced that way. So "damned" was spoken as "dam-nid". When Shakeseare wanted the single-syllable the modern pronunciation he'd write "damn'd".

I'M LATE TO THE PARTY. BUT:




NOT TO BE DICK, but there's no such thing as 'correct' English. Some dictionaries may try and perscribe what you should say, but a majority of them these days are descriptivist and try to describe what people do say. Descriptivism is 'in' in the 21st centuray. Descriptivism is soooooooooooooo 18th century.

Someone should ask Stephen Fry over twitter or something. he seems to be the go-to for pretty much anything nowadays.

Nah. I can't trust a man who puts an "r" in "castle".

Or a "winky" in "woofter".

Only kidding, I trust gays.

Mostly.

Stephen Fry isn't from Bristol.

Not even our dear Mod, Crastler?