Why the 'r' between vowels?

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: matt milton
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 08:11 AM

I was very careful to say "in this context": the context of pronunciation in spoken English. If you regard accents or dialects as legitimate ("not sloppy"), I don't see how you can regard sizeable amounts of people speaking a certain way within those accents as "sloppy"/improper.

Essentially, I suppose it amounts to this: if one person speaks a certain way different from the norm, you could call it sloppy; but if thousands of people do, it's too late, it's English.

Thousands of working-class British people routinely say "dem" rather than "those". Are they sloppy? Are they wrong? If that's how their parents speak and their friends speak, you really call it inarticulacy.

My boss often describes something as "a bit of damp squid". We all find this highly amusing at work, though we've never corrected him. However, if thousands of people routinely made the same mistake, the phrase "a damp squib" would quickly become archaic, and it would cease to be a mistake, becoming just another of those quirky phrases. I often think these things are a shame. But that's language for you. The changing use of the word "impacted" is a good example.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: matt milton
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 08:14 AM

let me correct some of my own hastily typed sloppinesses:

"the context of pronunciation of English."
"If that's how their parents speak and their friends speak, you can't really call it inarticulacy."

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST, Tom Bliss
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 08:30 AM

You're right, Matt. The acceptance of both accent and language effectively come down to the number of people using them - but that means the numbers of people within a community.

Two siblings who have a private and unique way of talking, which they both perfectly understand, are speaking a language with an accent. If only one of them does, then they are not.

The danger with the counter argument expressed above is that - because it is impossible to isolate and quantify separate, distinct accents - you can wind up dismissing entire continents as 'sloppy.'

Vis, a majority of speakers on the North American continent (and quite a few elsewhere) routinely pronounce the sound usually represented in 'English' as 't' by using the sound usually represented as 'd.' No-one objects (apart from himself above there), because there are so many people doing it.

But where do you draw a line between this huge population and the siblings with their private language?

Obviously you cannot.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Marje
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 11:34 AM

I think if we say "sloppy", (and I probably did somewhere up there but I'm too sloppy to go and look) we're implying that the speaker is lazy or careless in some way - it's about a mental attitude rather than any particular habit.

If you care enough about speaking clearly and being understood, you'll try to avoid anything that gets in the way of this. If, on the other hand, you think it's up to other people to work a bit harder at deciphering your meaning, and that as long as you say something like what you mean, they'll sort it out, that's sloppiness. It's also misguided, because sloppy enunciation and expression is often more ambiguous or downright misleading than the speaker realises, because they haven't stopped to consider how it sounds.

And - oh heck, I'll confess this but it can't just be me - as you get older and your hearing less acute,you become more aware of sloppy and indistinct speech. So maybe it's an old farts' way of categorising speech habits, but it's still quite valid.

Marje (no, dear, I said Marje, not Mars!)

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST, Tom Bliss
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 11:51 AM

Yes, I agree with that. And I certainly find a lot of people I know had to understand, specially those of this parish of a teenage flavour. But I think we need to guard against feeling that if someone habitually uses sounds that we personally find harder to understand than, say, RP, this is necessarily sloppiness or laziness on their part. It could be a bona fide local or community accent, and/or part if the 'continuous improvement' process.

It was the statements which seemed to suggest that there were 'acceptable' accents and 'unacceptable' ones which I was disputing - specially as people seemed to be dismissing some forms of speech (such as the 'r' in question) which are certainly not sloppy, just different.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,Don Wise
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 06:34 AM

In the UK there is also,unfortunately, a class aspect to regional accents. Whilst this may have weakened in the course of recent decades I suspect it still lingers on.
There was, during WWII, an occasion when the BBC, wanting to promote national solidarity, decided to get the Lancashire entertainer Wilfred Pickles to read the 6'o' clock news, Lancashire accent and all. This only happened once. The Beeb was inundated with complaints from the upper middle class denizens of the 'Home Counties' about 'unacceptable, uneducated, unintelligeable regional accents','Not the King's English' and the like, from people who considered that, north of Leighton Buzzard and Welwyn Garden City, the country was the preserve of the great unwashed, uneducated proletariat who were incapable of 'speaking proper' and whose accents were not simply unacceptable but completely beyond the pale. Regional radio and TV comedies have redressed the situation somewhat, but I suspect that, in some circles, this attitude is still present.
On the subject of mutual understandability, there was, long long ago, a TV comedy show in Scotland starring Stanley Baxter. He did a wonderful skit on the then current fashion for foreign language learning programmes on the Beeb entitled 'Parliamo Glasgow'. Totally impenetrable over the top 'Glesga' dialect/accent with subtitles. Hilarious.
To be serious though, this can happen in real life. Not long after I'd moved to Germany I watched a film about a successful anti nuclear power station protest near Freiburg in south-west Germany. The local dialect there is very strong and, for outsiders, scarcely understandable. The film had (high-)german subtitles, something I hadn't reckoned with.
For me ,it's not about acceptable or unacceptable accents, extra consonants or not, it is simply about being aware that there are situations where it is preferable to tone down the accent, play down the extra consonants.
Any body remember Martin Carthy's late 60's vocals.....? And Dave Burland's wonderful parody of them?

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,Dazbo at work
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 08:14 AM

Not just "him above" but me too, miss-pronouncing the letter T as a D is really, really annoying.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 11:30 AM

"there are situations where it is preferable to tone down the accent, play down the extra consonants."

Those are good ideas, Don. I'd like to ad that one of the best ways to make yourself understandable to someone with a different dialect is to slow down. You don't have to slow down much, but doing it just a little will be much appreciated.

Slowing down also helps with the elderly. Remember that they have so much wisdom and history stored in their brains already, that when someone younger speaks, they have to shove brain content here and there to make room for the new material.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Marje
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 11:53 AM

At least with singing (which was where this discussion started out), any tendency to rush is corrected by the natural pace of the song.

Our daughter (like me, and my mother before me) has always talked quickly. Once when she was quite young and gabbling away, we said, "Slow down! We can't follow what you're saying, it's too fast!". She frowned and said, "Well, listen faster, then!"

Marje

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: michaelr
Date: 26 Oct 11 - 03:21 PM

I've only ever heard the "folksinger's N" on recordings by Cork balladeer Jimmy Crowley, and assumed it was a regional Cork thing. Is Tim Dennehy from Cork?

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 27 Oct 11 - 01:53 PM

Certainly rhere's such a thing as sloppy speech. Listen to a hymn sometime and notice how many people don't put the last consonant on the last word, settling for Lor instead of Lord or Gah instead of God.

We got into trouble over that when singing a song that ended with 'You've been our home." Ahem.

My husband has a form of sloppiness which irritates me. He starts talking and doesn't bother to put any breath support behind his words until several words in. The result is that the critical first words are inaudible.

I call it the Marlboro Man style. "I'm so big and manly I don't HAVE to speak up."

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Oct 11 - 02:06 PM

Worth citing here, I think, following from Wikipedia's article on "Linking and Intrusive R"

... recognizable examples are the Beatles singing: "I saw-r-a film today, oh boy" in the song "A Day in the Life", from their 1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, or at the Sanctus in the Catholic Mass: "Hosanna-r-in the highest". This is now common enough in parts of England that, by 1997, the linguist John C. Wells considered it objectively part of Received Pronunciation

~M~

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Oct 11 - 02:13 PM

leeneia ~~ My first wife would do that too; and had a maddening but on the whole amusing habit, when asked to repeat, of repeating loudly only the last words which I had already heard: as, e.g.

---Valerie: "inaudible inaudible inaudible in Cambridge Market this morning"

Michael: "Sorry, I missed the first bit. Could you say it again, please?"

Valerie: "IN CAMBRIDGE MARKET THIS MORNING!"---

Does your husband do that too?

~M~

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Oct 11 - 04:12 PM

A question, trying to get some perspective on who understands what: It is noted that those who speak "The Kings English" are often bother by 'quainter' accents from certain areas...but, do those with the 'unacceptable, uneducated, unintelligible regional accents' understand the 'upper crust' speech... as on the national news? Does "The Kings English" sound odd or confusing to them?
   The Germans DO have what they call 'die Umgangsprache', a basic, general speech that is understood by almost everyone, and which, my German instructor suggested many years ago, 'almost' everyone in Germany could approximate when necessary.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Bert
Date: 27 Oct 11 - 04:41 PM

We seem to have come the full circle here.
From Wilfred Pickles reading the news through Educated Southern English to Mid Western American English and back to "The Kings English".

There has to be some definition as to what is English. Which gets back to what I was saying. BBC English was contrived by the BBC so that they sounded educated, and is very new as far as English is concerned.

So what is that "Plain English" that your teacher told you about?

Obviously it is not the "Kings English" 'cos poor ol' George VI had to have a speech therapist, so we can't go by his speech or we'd all be talking with a lisp.

As I said before, standard English, That is English without an accent can only be London English. London is the Capital after all.

And most people in London speak with what others call a Cockney accent. If most people in London speak it, then Cockney is as near as we can get to Plain English.

So it's all you bloody lot that 'ave the accent and NOT ME!!!

Now if we could have a choice, I for one, wouldn't choose Cockney. The nicest accent I have ever heard was in Herefordshire So I propose that we all learn to speak as though we come from Hereford.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Oct 11 - 05:26 PM

Bert... whatever the reasons & origin, "BBC English" is a way to create a commonly understood, basic dialect since travel by powered vehicle, then radio, then television, then internet...etc., have made it at least useful and almost necessary for all areas to communicate easily.

My wife told of traveling in England 35 years ago, and having a waitress 'seem' to not understand when asked for a glass of 'water'. Finally, she perked up and asked: "Oh...you mean woah-tah?"
Now that may have been an 'attitude' rather than a real confusion, but it does point at the need for any person in any country to at least be able to approximate a basic accent and vocabulary, no matter what they use at home or in their neighborhood market.

(Years ago, I heard a black woman activist interviewed on the radio about "Black English" - at that time called Ebonics. She insisted that it was a genuine language, and that black children should not be shamed or pressured into not using it...and that it should even be taught in school.
   Fine....except that the woman explained all this in perfect 'regular' English, and made no mention of how African-American kids would compete in job interviews if they spoke ONLY Ebonics! I have no doubt she 'could' drop into Ebonics when necessary, but she seemed to have no concern about others being able to get out of it.)

If it is a matter of being essentially bi-lingual....fine. I have NO objection to anyone, anywhere preserving their childhood language and using it at home or even 80% of the time in their area. But for easy access to all the benefits of complex society, there needs to be a common way of communicating, even if touches of accent remain.

(An American Senator from Alabama, Howell Heflin, had a pronounced southern accent, and was known for using the most extreme, hard to understand, form of it to irritate colleagues when he wanted to bait them.)

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Bert
Date: 27 Oct 11 - 05:45 PM

I know Bill, I speak a kinda (kinda, spoken with an American accent) BBC English/Cockney mix, with, I'm sure by now, some American expressions thrown in.

I still haven't got the Colorado "O" pronounced as "U" yet. Culuradu Ruckies is one thing, but when you are talking about Soccer, it just sounds too odd.

I do use American expressions in my songwriting "I really wanna know, how do plastic flowers grow and where do we get them plastic flower seeds". But that is deliberate.

It's just that I have too much fun telling people that "I" don't have an accent.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 27 Oct 11 - 06:38 PM

Hello, MtheGM. No, my husband doesn't repeat the last part. For exmaple, if he says:

"mumble mumble mumble the transmission of the blue car"

I have learned to say "What about the blue car?" (not rudely) and he fills me in.

Bill D: I too have noticed the irony of people who defend so-called Black English but don't use it themselves.* Frankly, I think most of Black English is the excited jabber of kids at play. And for various reasons, they are kids who have not had much chance to carry on conversations with interested adults.

I'll tell you a little story. I'm going to volunteer at a local school, and it was the end of our first session together. Nine little black kids were ready for home. They were restless and wouldn't get in line. The boys were joke-kicking and punching each other, and I thought, "Whoo boy, how do we get them to calm down?"

I said "Boys and girls, let's see how many of your names I learned today." It was as if a magic spell had been cast. They froze, whipped around, and nine sets of eyes were riveted upon me. An adult, a nice adult was interested in them, in each one personally! They were eager to tell me their names and their friends' names. Suddenly the mood was changed radically, and we all parted comfortably.

As my friend the educator says, "Any adult who will TALK to them..."

*I have also noticed the irony of academics who write on English usage and defend the split infinitive. Yet you could search the whole book and not find a single infinitive they have split themselves.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Oct 11 - 07:04 PM

I guess we have deviated from the 'r' between vowels theme, but when I first saw the thread, the first thing I thought of was John F Kennedy talking about dealing with "Cuber", and wondering why he didn't make some little effort to ease that.


leenia...if you look at my link above, it shows that "Black English" is a bit more than mere jabber. It does have some definable properties, much like any language variant. If they choose to call it a genuine dialect of English, it make little difference to me. I just worry over the kids being unable to switch when needed.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 27 Oct 11 - 07:05 PM

And what about the intrusive NG? As in certain regions S of the Border they say EDINGBURGH and BADMINGTON. (I even had Edingburgh on one of my credit card bills!!)
And in some parts of Scotland those 2 slices of bread with a filling become SANGWICHES?

In East Anglia, where I was brought up you get the extra Y dividing what should be a single vowel into 2, e.g there becomes THEYA, or here becomes HEEYA. (and the r gets lost!

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 12:48 AM

Another E Anglian variant is that a final y turns into the indefinite [ɘ] vowel ~~ so, in some of Peter Bellamy's Norfolk songs you get "Young Jimma with his dog and his gun"; "Because I come from Bunga Town they call I Bunga Roger". {The town is actually Bungay}

~M~

or should I have written Peter Bellama!

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 10:16 AM

Last night I went to a concert where a man from Scotland put an r on the end of 'criteria.' So it's not just John F. Kennedy...

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,Don Wise
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 10:33 AM

Or as some of the old singers used to sing it:- Diverus and Lazarus......

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 11:01 AM

'I've only ever heard the "folksinger's N" on recordings by Cork balladeer Jimmy Crowley, and assumed it was a regional Cork thing. Is Tim Dennehy from Cork?'

Tim is originally from Kerry, Cahirciveen but landed in the same place as myself, and Jim Carroll for that matter.

I don't think it's a Cork thing, I have heard other people describe it as 'a Northern thing' because they heard Len Graham use it extensively. Christy Moore is no stranger to it either. Or you'll find it in Joe Corcoran's 'Ronks of Bawn' for that matter.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,Richard in Manchester
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 02:07 PM

I'm with Marje. Sloppiness caused by laziness or carelessness is not the same thing as a variation in pronunciation over time and geography.

Tom, case in point: the exaggerated r is a trait of the Lancastrian accent, particularly around Blackburn and Accrington. Ask an Accringtonian to say 'car park' and you'd think you were in New York. But the pronounced r in a Lancastrian's 'pepprr' is not there because of carelessness in the way that BBC - yes, BBC - sports commentators routinely refer to the English athlete Jessica Ennis as 'Jessica Rennis'. That has nothing to do with accent or 'linguistic evolution', it's just plain lazy mispronunciation.

Is it all that important? Well, as my glorious leader Marje says, perhaps it's an attitude of mind? An editor for the print media allowing Jessica Rennis to appear on the page and protesting 'linguistic evolution' wouldn't be an editor for very long.

I'm baffled by your sadness for the "loss of brought". The loss of brought? I'm happy to reassure you, 'brought' is in rude health round here.