Why the 'r' between vowels?

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.

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,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,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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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,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, 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 07:36 AM

I don't moan about anything, Matt. I simply dispute your equation of the sloppy with the variant; an analogy which just will not hold up. They are entirely discrete entities.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 07:33 AM

But that assumes that accents are absolute in some definable way.

You cannot draw boundaries round accents. They are affected by many things, some learned in the cradle, some changed deliberately, some as a result of the way one's head is constructed, or what one watches on TV, or how a partner speaks, or where one moves to.

Some people do speak 'sloppily,' but that 'sloppiness' may be common to a community, making the 'sloppy' accent a small but valid subset of what you might accept as a 'proper' accent. Furthermore, as I said earlier, like language, accents are constantly evolving and developing over time. This 'sloppiness' part of that process.

Matt is so right. If you want to avoid being thought of as 'sloppy,' and/or you want to be understood, you may need to change how you speak for certain listeners, but that doesn't mean that your natural accent is 'sloppy.' Just that someone else may not be able to understand it, or may put you into a box that you'd rather not be put in. It's up to you.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: matt milton
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 07:32 AM

I would agree with you that it's sloppy if you fail "to communicate articulately within whatever variance one might be working within".

But that's not what happens if you insert an "r" between vowels: you are still communicating articulately.

Describing this kind of thing as "sloppiness" (or a "barbarism" or an "aberrance") is overkill, and ultimately unenforceable anyway: it's everyday use by people. You can moan about it all you like but at the end of the day, once enough people do it, it becomes correct by default.

I suspect most dialects and accents owe something to "sloppiness". What is elision, after all? Whenever I'm in France, I'm struck by how many English words clearly came into being by simply being "sloppy" mispronunciations of French words.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 07:16 AM

No. 'Sloppiness' in no way = 'variance'. 'Sloppiness' is the failure to communicate articulately within whatever variance one might be working within. There are those who speak with clarity, and those who fail to do so, among speakers of any accent.

~M~

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST, Tom Bliss
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 06:51 AM

Good post, Matt.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: matt milton
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 06:48 AM

Must admit, while I have to be pedantic about the meanings and spellings of words for my job (sub-editing/proofreading), it never occurs to me to be similarly pedantic about how people speak.

I can't see that one can possibly cordon off "sloppiness" from accent: "sloppiness" is what dialects and accents are predicated upon. "Sloppiness" in this context is simply an ideologically charged synonym for "variance".

Like most discussions concerning rectitude or etiquette (of anything at all), this one revolves around class. When I do my weekly volunteer reading session with local primary school kids, I'm well aware that the Afro-Caribbean (in the main) pronunciation of "asked" as "axed" that a lot of the kids use would count against them in a job interview in the industry that I work in.

You've got to know, for strategic reasons, what other people consider to be right and wrong. But you've also got to know that those people are pedants whose pedantry is a mask for protecting their own kind against meritocratic incursions (such as improving A-level results from state schools).

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 06:07 AM

Singers' or speakers' own regional accents and dialects are of course exempt from any criticism.

The "folksingers' n", which I had not noticed before reading this thread, is quite a different phenomenon. Judging from the examples mentioned by Peter, I guess that it is used to avoid "unnaturally" long vowels. Whenever a vowel is followed by m, n, or r, Tim Dennehy spends the rest of the note with it, after a very short vowel. Thus, the n is a "liquidisation" of the t-sound following it. This effect is well known, normally very short, and so is the corresponding short m before p or b. (BTW: since the original Greek b is now pronounced v, the Greek use "mp" for the b sound in foreign words.)

In my personal opinion, some singer-songwriter's idea of sounding "heartfelt" rather than "artificial" (= vowels of full length etc.) is of questionable taste. A song will always be art, good or bad.

The "opera singers' m and n", equally questionable, are applied at the beginning of notes, usually high ones, to test the intonation and to reach the correct pitch by a glissando. The idea is that a consonant need not be in pitch - not all listeners agree.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 05:26 AM

The folksingers 'n':

Keep in Touch

Examples in the lines:

Don't le(*)t pained indifference occupy the heart @ 1.08

..our thou(*)ghts they are as one... @1.22

..keep in tou(*)ch.. @ 1.30


And I use this example only because I am reasonably familiar with Tim's singing so it was easy to lift an example. It's something I hear a good few singers do, Christy Moore for example but others could be heard doing this as well. It's not something I mind or dislike but it is something I notice.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Marje
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 04:46 AM

That "j" is another of those transitional sounds that are difficult to avoid, because the mouth passes through the shape of that sound between two other sounds. You get in words like "duty" (juty), "dubious" (jubious) etc, because the speaker keeps the tip of the tongue on the palate just a bit too long. It can be avoided but it's easily done if you're speaking hurriedly or carelessly.

I can't quite hear what the "folksinger's N" is in my head, but it may be a feature of the nasal "Mummerset" style of delivery that is favoured by some singers - not so much an extra consonant as a nasalisation of the vowel.

Marje

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Bert
Date: 24 Oct 11 - 10:08 PM

Or the J in schedjewel

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: melodeonboy
Date: 24 Oct 11 - 08:50 PM

"My wife one time said that what annoyed her about Star Trek was that all the aliens had American accents - which wasn't believable. I asked her what kind of accents aliens should have!"

Yes, I think it was my first wife that commented, while watching "Morons from Outer Space", on how funny it was that an alien (in this case Jimmy Nail) should have a Geordie accent. I think I asked her a similar question to yours, Allan!

"What about the intrusive W As in schoowel"

Well, is that an intrusive "r" or an intrusive "e"?

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 24 Oct 11 - 08:07 PM

"One of my favorite examples is "bhitheadh," pronounced "via"."

All the letters are pronounced, or at least contribute to the final pronunciation!

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,Seonaid
Date: 24 Oct 11 - 07:08 PM

You can argue for English or French all you want.
But for unpronounced letters, the best ever is Gaelic.
One of my favorite examples is "bhitheadh," pronounced "via".
(BTW, the extra "R" that started this discussion was obviously inserted by pirates.)

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,Tinker from Chicago
Date: 24 Oct 11 - 05:10 PM

The disappearing T is what bothers me most in American radio and TV, especially with sports writers. Routinely they'll talk about an inneresting trade at the winner meetings (do losers have their own meetings?), perhaps between Toronno and Atlanna.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Tootler
Date: 24 Oct 11 - 04:36 PM

"Wye Eye"

or if you're of a mathematical bent

Y_i

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Bert
Date: 24 Oct 11 - 10:34 AM

What about the intrusive W As in schoowel

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 24 Oct 11 - 09:50 AM

"He just couldn't get hold of the idea that his mode of speech was as much an accent as anyone else's." My wife one time said that what annoyed her about Star Trek was that all the aliens had American accents - which wasn't believable. I asked her what kind of accents aliens should have! She reckoned that they should speak like her because she doesn't have an accent! She comes from Norfolk though doesn't have a Norfolk or other regional accent but anyone would know straight away that she was English because of her accent. yet she insists she doesn't have one! :-)

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 24 Oct 11 - 05:51 AM

What about the 'foklksinger's 'n''

Le(n)t, Tou(n)ght, Tou(n)ch and all that


I remember someone saying while listening to Tim Dennehy sing 'Keep in Tounch' that he wouldn't recommend him singing that Cat Stevens song because it would come out really odd.

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Marje
Date: 24 Oct 11 - 05:38 AM

I'm sitting here muttering sounds to myself: *he only... heeyonly.." (wouldn't it be good if we could hear each other!) I think the "intrusive y" is simply a transitional sound that emerges when the mouth moves from ee to oh. (There is probably a proper term for this but I can't remmber what it is.) The only way to avoid it would be to use a slight glottal stop, and this is what some speakers do. The intrusive r is a bit different, as many speakers manage perfectly well without using either the R or the glottal stop in, say, "I saw a .."

The L is another interesting case. Scottish speakers, for instance, make little or no distinction between the light and the dark L, so a word like "little" has two very similar sounds, and "call" has the same L as "calling". What interests me about this is that there was once a corresponding sound-shift in French, so words like "beau" and "belle" were once the same or at least much closer, and "chateau" is related to "castle" (the French dropped the s sound and we dropped the T); and nowadays, a Londoner might well lose the L sound when saying "castle", pronouncing it "cassow"". It makes me wonder whether this sound-shift in south-eastern England in in some way connected to the French one, since they're geographically so close?

Marje

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: melodeonboy
Date: 24 Oct 11 - 05:01 AM

What about the "intrusive" y then? I'd pronounce "he only" as eeyoanlee. (Sorry, I can't get IPA script on my computer!)

As for "l" being pronounced as "w", this happens because pre-vocalic and inter-vocalic "l" (e.g. list, taller) is a light "l" and is, to the best of my knowledge, always pronounced as what we would recognise as "l", whereas post-vocalic "l" (e.g. wall) is a dark "l". They are two different sounds phonetically, and many British English speakers (especially southerners like me!) don't naturally have the dark "l" in our "phonetic set", so we'd substitute a "w" sound (e.g. baw for ball).

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Bert
Date: 24 Oct 11 - 04:19 AM

Ask any Northerner.

Wye eye Man!

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: michaelr
Date: 23 Oct 11 - 09:25 PM

Y'all are just fucking with me now... ;-(

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: GUEST, Tom Bliss
Date: 23 Oct 11 - 05:27 PM

Does being Free of the City of London make me a cockney?

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Tootler
Date: 23 Oct 11 - 04:43 PM

You might be having fun Bert, but I remember one public school educated person I met some years ago who was adamant he didn't have an accent.

In fact he had a real "hooray henry" accent. He just couldn't get hold of the idea that his mode of speech was as much an accent as anyone else's.

Oh and Cockneys definitely have an accent. Ask any Northerner ;-)

Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
From: Bert
Date: 23 Oct 11 - 02:37 PM

I would have thought that most readers would have guessed by now that I am having fun. But just because the wealthy few speak with an accent, that doesn't mean that Cockneys do!


☺☺〠〠☺☺