BS: BBC America and names

Subject: BS: BBC America and names
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 10:37 PM

My cable company carries BBC America, and I really enjoy getting world news with a different slant and topics that our many networks don't often bother with.........however..
Now that our elections are approaching, I hear many mentions of the candidates. Mitt Romney is discussed often... but who is this "Barrack O' Bomber" fellow? (or, alternately, BEAR-ack, as I heard tonight). Yes, I know it not a 'proper English name'.. but it isn't a standard American name either, but our broadcasters have learned to pronounce it the way HE- (the president, Barack Obama) does, 'Bah-rock Oh-ba-ma'.

I KNOW that spellings are different over there..and the same words are often pronounced differently...but proper names of people... and countries... and companies? (I just heard a story on the German company 'Oddy' (Audi.. pronounced Ow-dee by its owners)... and I have heard for many years about the country in Central America, Nick-uh-RAG-YOU-a. Somewhere, I have some notes on a couple other countries I have heard BBC announcers add extra syllables to.
Point? These are supposedly professional broadcasters, and no matter what their regional dialect, it IS possible to learn and practice various 'foreign' names reasonably close to the way they are said by their countries.

(I am aware the many Americans still say 'Mex-i-co' when it is pronounced (approximately) May-he-co by natives...but if I were to beam a broadcast at them, I would enquire how they would wish words to sound and do my best to say it correctly... or hire a Spanish speaking announcer)

(Oh... and right here in these threads, I have seen UK folk make snide remarks about how General Colin Powell pronounces his own name. It may seem funny to some, but it is his choice.......)

nit-picking? Perhaps, but I remember my wife explaining how, many years ago, she tried for several minutes to get a glass of water in a London restaurant and was looked at blankly because she wasn't saying "WO-tah"...

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 12:03 AM

Agreed, in the main (though disagree re Mexico ~~ one of those names which are traditionally anglicised and have always been so, like Paris - bet you don't say Par-ee. There are changes, mind: I remember when Lee-ong and Mar-say were Lions and Mar-sails. But these traditional ones are a bit arbitrary).

Still, I repeat ~ agree with your main point, as to Audi/Owdy/Oddy &c.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Bert
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 12:39 AM

she wasn't saying "WO-tah" Actually it is wor'a where the apostrophe is a glottal stop and the 'r' is lightly pronounced, just a little heavier than a 'w'.

Of course in London they speak English correctly, everyone else has an accent.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 05:30 AM

Bring back presenters and announcers like Angela Rippon, who devoted time to checking these pronunciations and used them correctly on air.

She was the first newsreader to pronounce African names with precision.

Of course, there was a move toward including regional accents, which I would support in principle, but that would not preclude learning proper pronunciations.

It's like so much in the modern world. Nobody can be bothered to do it right!

Don T

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 05:54 AM

Do you remember Pamela Stephenson on a comedy show some years ago? She was always reading the News about Mistah M-Gar-bay of Zim-ba-bwe with an ultra-correct pronunciation. It was in order to mock pretentiousness among newsreaders. I'm reminded of our VERY blue and posh Latin teacher Miss Bailey-Reynolds. She forbade us to pronounce Latin in anything but a very English way. "We're not the Pope!" she used to snarl!

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,marks
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 08:32 AM

Eliza

Thanks for your post! Had the same thing happen to me. Started Latin in Catholic school and finished up in public school. Got a lot of snickers in class when I quoted the noble Julius as saying "Veni, vidi, vici" when it should have come out "Weni, widi, wici."
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 09:10 AM

In the UK I hear Obama pronounced the same way I would do so (Oh Bah Mah) purely based on the spelling as I've never heard him speak his own name.

In the US, the pronunciation of A seems to be harder (act, pact, ant) and similar to more Northern English Accents than that you might typically hear on the Beeb (cart, art, start), which rarely if ever makes a nod to regional variations on RP.

Possibly what you're hearing with proper names, is more likely to be based on accent than mispronunciation per se. I've certainly never heard anyone pronounce Audi anything other than 'Aow dee' here in the UK.

I do hear Nicaragua pronounced wrongly, instead of niggr-AWH-gwa I hear it Nickur-Ag-you-ah, though like most nations, the UK has used English dialect bastardisations of the names of foreign countries for many centuries, certainly from long before electronic communications made inaccuracies as evident as they are today and such words thus pronounced, have become long ingrained as a part of the fabric of our language.

Until there is some kind of collective policy change in the media which then filters down into popular usage, cities like Paris will continue to be known as Pah-ris in English and Pah-ree in French.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 09:31 AM

A distinction of course needs to be made between mispronunciations, and places which just have different names in different languages. When we call the cities known to their inhabitants as Moskva or Yerushaliyim, by the names of Moscow and Jerusalem, we are not getting them wrong, but just using our names for them; as the French call our capital Londres and the Italians Londra, and the Welsh call our NW seaport Lerpwl. Sometimes usages change: Livorno used to be called Leghorn in English, but I think that is now obsolete: as are the Marsails and Lions pronunciations I instanced above, which we now also spell in the native French way, without the final s we used to add - but Paris is still not Paree.

It all shows that there is no looking for consistency in linguistic usage. I have often wondered, e.g., why only the most pretentious would ask for a bottle of Shom-pan-yuh in a restaurant; but only the least informed or most vulgar for a bottle of Bew-joe-lays. All a bit arbitrary.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 11:59 AM

If there's an established nativized pronunciation for a foreign word that I grew up with, I will always use it. No way would I ever say anything but nick-a-RAG-you-ah.

Where I don't quite know what do: when a placename I already know how to pronounce as the locals do gets to be popularized in English in a nativized form. I knew how to pronounce "Kuşadası" as it is in Turkish (and I knew what it meant) long before British tourists started going there. The standard British pronunciation is unintelligible and meaningless to a Turk, but over the last 30 years the British have developed a unanimous agreement about getting it wrong. So what do I say and when?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 12:52 PM

"If there's an established nativized pronunciation for a foreign word that I grew up with, I will always use it. No way would I ever say anything but nick-a-RAG-you-ah."

well....and I suppose Nic Robertson would agree with you. He is an excellent journalist, but 'nick-a-RAG-you-ah' is just.. ummm.. incorrect. It is in a different category than Paris/Paree. I can't even reproduce what someone did to Guatemala.
--------------------------------

CS... I just heard 'Oddy' last night. I'm unsure if the BBC news folk I see are standard in the UK, or whether they are mainly for the US programs. They DO give me MY local temperatures in degrees C rather than F, as I am used to.... not even both C/F as an aid.

We do get many feeds from the BBC over here.....do you in the UK never get American newscasts that would allow you to hear Obama say his name? I have heard at least 3 BBC folks say various versions of 'Barrack', 'BEARak' in the last few days. I assume they feel like Jack Campin that there is some ummm... "established nativized pronunciation for a foreign word..."... It always makes me wonder who 'established' it, and why THEY made so little effort to hear it correctly.


In my first college German class, there were a couple of fellows who simply could not...or would not... manage a German umlaut. It was almost as if they were refusing to "make those funny sounds". I am a firm believer in TRYING to approximate the pronunciation of important words, even though my own accent may make it difficult. When Mudcatter Noreen visited here to attend the Getaway, I asked her how she said her name, as we usually say Nor-EEN. She prefers NOR-een... so... I can handle that.
---------------------

Bert... about "WO-tah" - wor'a.... I would love to ask that waitress how she spelled it. I really have a hard time accepting that she actually misunderstood 'water'. I 'suspect' that she was chiding the dumb American who couldn't speak properly. "May I please have a glass of 'wah-ter'" can't mean too many things.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 01:08 PM

I'd imagine they probably go for a Kenyan pronunciation rather than an Americanised one. The way his father would have pronounced it.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 01:20 PM

I was asked in LA what my car at home was when collecting a hire car at the airport. Jaguar, I said. After 10 mins and remembering they pronounce it rather strangely, I said Jagwar and then the conversation could move on.

Pronunciation and indeed spelling has differences. France starts 20 odd miles across the water but they even spell London. "wrong ". We put an s on pronouncing Paris and poor Italy has to put up with us spelling many of their cities differently.

Interestingly we are told by many sources that accents in New England are the nearest to Elizabethan British accents. Somewhat skeptical myself but could be something in it.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 01:33 PM

It always makes me wonder who 'established' it, and why THEY made so little effort to hear it correctly.

"Nick-a-RAG-you-ah" is the only pronunciation the OED mentions, for a start. They were reporting late 19th century practice and didn't find any alternative in use then.

Who would most people in the UK have heard any other pronunciation from? I'm 63 and as far as I know I've never spoken to a Nicaraguan in my entire life. I've been closer to the place than most folks in the UK, having been through the Panama Canal when I was 8 years old and learning its history in the ship school - "Nick-a-RAG-you-ah" it was then from everybody on the ship, from school geography teachers in New Zealand, and in fact from everybody I've ever heard say the word except white Americans. Other Latin Americans I've heard simply adopted the British pronunciation.

Have you ever made an effort to pronounce "Kuşadası" correctly? (It features much more prominently in British discourse than Nicaragua does). If you're in the US, I can't imagine why you'd bother. If you're in the UK, you'd just confuse travel agents.

The Turkish government made fools of themselves in a big way in the 1980s when (as a result of a con by a PR firm) they were persuaded that "Turkey" was derogatory and they had to get foreigners saying "Türkiye". The level of ignorance and confusion in the minds of the officials who ran that campaign is almost unbelievable. Needless to say it was a total flop. It should have been obvious that trying to get people to use a vowel sound that doesn't even occur in English was a lost cause.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 02:39 PM

From what I've read, when Obama was younger (I think I'm getting this from a former girlfriend as quoted in Vanity Fair a couple months ago), he pronounced his first name Bar'-ack (when he didn't go by Barry).

When I was married to my first husband (1970-1979) I annoyed his family by pronouncing the family name (which I took when we married and divorced when I divorced him) as it would be in Italy. Of course, no one outside the family could spell it and most of them murdered the name no matter how they pronounced it.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 02:42 PM

I am reminded of a mispronunciation that was common to an entire generation in American. Notwithstanding our proximity to Mexico and the fact that Mexican Spanish has remained quite stable in its rules, many USAans grew up singing about the "rye oh" Grande. Why was that, I wonder? I think someone must have early on recorded a song with that pronunciation; it is the only thing that would explain it.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 03:22 PM

Interestingly we are told by many sources that accents in New England are the nearest to Elizabethan British accents.

Urban legend.

For starters, no English-speaking settlement in North America dates to Elizabethan times.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 03:39 PM

Except Roanoke Island, but that didn't last.

Nobody in the 21st century speaks with a 17th century accent. Some are "closer" in some ways than others - at least to the extent that we can guess as to what some 17th century accents sounded like.

It is said that current Dublin English (upper-class? lower-class? who knows?) sounds more like Shakespearean London English than any other dialect. The limited evidence I've seen suggests that this may be true, but our knowledge of Shakespeare's pronunciation is only well-informed guesswork.

And nobody in the 21st century routinely employs 17th centurty vocabulary.

The frequent claim that "Appalachian English" is some kind of holdover from the "Elizabethans" is nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 03:52 PM

The news readers on the BBCAmerica, although most have degrees from English, American or EU schools, are from Sudan-Egypt (Zeinab Bedawi), Ghana (Komla Dumor), Pakistan (Mishal Husein), India Geeta Guru-Murthy and others), Filipines (Rico Hizon), Sharanjit Leyl (Singapore) and Indonesia (Karishma Vaswami), China, Japan (Mariko Oi) and others from EU plus all the correspondents; asking for them all to standardiz(s)e on common English or North American pronunciations is perhaps asking too much.

Nicaragua is pronounced in Latin America Nica ra(hg) (u) wa, the 'g' almost silent and the 'u' as well. Raised in a city that was more than 50 percent Hispanic at the time, Nica rag-you-wa makes me cringe.

Many of the European cities are pronounced in English differently from the way the inhabitants do- Venezia, Roma, Oporto, Lisboa, Köln, etc., etc. The newer National Geographic maps have adopted these spellings or give both.

And jaguar has only two syllables.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 04:35 PM

""Nick-a-RAG-you-ah" is the only pronunciation the OED mentions, for a start.<"
well, that's an education for me! I am rather surprised...but it may explain a lot.

from Q "Nica rag-you-wa makes me cringe." Me too...notwithstanding the OED.

My real point was about the BC and 'professionalism'. Here, we have young women with something similar to "Valley Girl" voices, and I would hate to see them attempt Cholmondely or 'Magdalen' without lots of coaching. But then, they seldom need to speak directly to a UK audience.

Besides those news readers Q mentions, I see several gen-you-ine 'English' readers, and 'tis THEY who have made the errors I was protesting. The others generally do a better job, even with a certain accent indicative of their heritage. Zeinab Bedawi & Rico Huzon are easier to understand than some 'pure' Brits... *shrug*

Interestingly, we get many of the older English sit-com TV shows, and with few exceptions, I can follow most of the dialogue pretty well. Some local slang & vernacular loses a bit... but I am gradually adapting, and I can turn on closed captioning if needed.
(Does BBC used closed captions at all? It is not available here, whereas all my regular stations provide it.)

We in America have some regions...particularly in the south... where regional Southern drawl is almost as extreme as any UK dialects I have heard.....but on TV, they hire newscasters who speak close to what is used on the National news.

and Jaguar DOES have only 2 syllables

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 04:52 PM

And jaguar has only two syllables.
Jaguar DOES have only 2 syllables

"jaguar" and "Jaguar" are not the same.

How easily would I be understood in the US talking about "New Or-lay-ON", "Duh Trah" or "Day Mwahn"?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 05:01 PM

My impression is that Americans have a marked tendency to pronounce foreign names according to how they think the spelling suggests, regardless of how the foreigners pronounce the words. As with Wagner and Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 05:15 PM

Iraq... oh my.... *I* cringe at the many US news people...and military... who say Eye-wrak.

Wagner is a problem because many people use the name who barely know of the composer.

Even worse? Simón Bolívar

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Allan Conn
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 06:56 PM

"Interestingly we are told by many sources that accents in New England are the nearest to Elizabethan British accents."

That statement doesn't really make much sense though. The Britain of the 16thC would have had lots of very different accents just as the Britain of today has! Going by the personal letters and correspondence etc the accent of those in (for instance) the Scottish Borders in the 16thC seems to be pretty close to those in the Scottish Borders now. Likewise dialogue as written at a slightly later date by the likes of Hogg in books like the Three Perils Of Man could come straight out of the mouths of modern Borderers.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 08:16 PM

The answer is simple. Listen to Brian Sewell.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 10:23 PM

The OED does NOT have the pronunciation "Ni ca rag you wa."

It has Nikäræ'giuä

So There!

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 10:33 PM

Most Wagner's in Canada or U.S. would take umbrage at Vagner (and UK too?0.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 10:42 PM

Jaguar automobiles imported into U.S. are never jag-you-ars, but are Jag-wars.

Des Moines generally is De-moin(s) but sometimes Day-moin(s). Most names are Angliciz(s)ed.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 06:08 AM

Does the UK not have news feeds that would allow me to hear Obama say his own name?

Possibly it does, but then I rarely if ever hear any native politicians say their own names on TV. It's not the sort of thing politicians are usually heard speaking about.

The RP of water is "Wart-uh" the lazy UK version is "War. ah" the US pronunciation of water I hear usually goes "Wahr Der" and the OZ goes "Wor Dah"

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 06:10 AM

Oops make that: RP of water = "Wort-uh"

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 07:32 AM

Nope. That would sound "Wurt ' "

The first syllable of "water" sounds exactly like the lumps you get on your fingers. "wart". It does not rhyme with "fart" but almost with "thought" or "fraught". The second syllable is not "uh", exactly, but a little longer, more like the sound of puzzlement "err".

In correct English the glottal stop is never used.

in "East Enders" English the "wa" starts with a "w" but then turns into a cartoon monkey grunt with a faint "w" at the end - then a glottal stop - and the final syllable is an exhalation with a small amount of tone as if punched in the stomach.

The US sounds like "wore" (as in "I wore new shoes" followed by a sort of "der" - but the tongue is curled a fair bit further back along the roof of the mouth than expected - almost vowel-less. At least to my ears.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Musket
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 08:31 AM

Jaguar has three syllables.

We make them in The UK.

So we decide.

Fuck you.

:)

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 11:06 AM

Richard, there are indeed glottal stops in RP English, for example 'a panda attack' would have a glottal stop between the two a's. So would 'Stella Atkinson'. (I studied Phonetics at Edinburgh University as part of my French and Linguistics double course. But it was donkey's years ago!)

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 11:18 AM

Hey, Brits! Drop the silent "r's" in your representations of how we say "water."

I was a grownup before I realized that "Eeyore" is supposed to sound more or less like "Heehaw."

Some people do say "warsh" and "Wawrshington" (with an r), but I don't think anyone says "warter." Or, for that matter, "dorter."

No matter what you may have seen printed in comic dialect.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 11:20 AM

"The US sounds like "wore" (as in "I wore new shoes" followed by a sort of "der"

Not even close, to most of us in the US. At least from the 'heartland' west, we say 'WA tuhr'. The vowel in 'Wa' is pronounced identically to 'what'.

I can't speak for Maine, New York/Jersey, the Carolinas or Alabama.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 11:26 AM

"The US sounds like "wore" (as in "I wore new shoes" followed by a sort of "der" -"

or CS hearing "Wahr Der"

Really? What part of the country were you visiting? (or was it from tourists IN the UK?) In this huge place, I can believe almost any variation can be found, but 98% of everyone I can remember hearing in 42 states have said something very close to "wa-ter"....no, actually it is usually closer to 'watter', with no clear break between syllables.

It bewilders me how such a short, simple word can be transformed into 'wor-uh'...etc.....however, if an Englishman were to go to a restaurant in almost any place in the US and ask for "a glass of 'wor-duh'", I really doubt he'd be quizzed by the waitress. ;>)

(all this is interesting, but my main concern is STILL about on-air pronunciations of proper names of people and countries by those who should know better.)

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 11:37 AM

In my experience very few anglophones can pronounce non-English names correctly -my clan has more or less given up, so that even Hugh Dan on BBC Alba is mispronouncing MacCoinneach in Gaelic. America seems to be worse than England in this respect, especially with Polish names, where 'ow' is consistently pronounced as in cow rather than as of. Some familes have given up and changed their spelling, eg Mingus (Menzies) or Powlus (Paulus).

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 12:08 PM

"Really? What part of the country were you visiting?"

US TV and films - with which we are saturated every day :)

I definitely hear a D in place of a T in much of the dialogue I hear on US film & TV, to the extent that I've occasionally been confused about what someone's name actually is (words in context are no trouble) before realising that the 'duh' I'm hearing is in fact a 'tuh'.

Here's a comparison between US and English pronunciation. I hear a "D" in the US pronunciation instead of a "T" - neither is correct or incorrect, it's simply an accent thing.

http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=water&submit=Submit

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 02:36 PM

Well... that howjsay page is fairly accurate about a 'standard' (or 'fairly' common) pronunciation. But I hope no one takes it as universal for either version. I hear the 't' form as often as the 'd' here. I just almost never hear the 'wor-duh' and its cousins that seem to be fairly common in the UK.

And lor' lov a duck... they DO say Nic-uh-rag-u-a.

Interesting--- they give CON-tro-versy as the preferred version *worldwide", rather than the con-TROV-ersy I hear on BBC. That seems to be quite a point of contention in some places. That one makes no difference to me... it is a matter of local acceptance and not a proper name.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 03:13 PM

Regarding Elizabethan accents, this Open University clip on 'Shakespearean' accents and writing is an interesting and informative 10 minutes.

Makes sense to me, much stronger 'regional' influences, less 'R.P.' influence &c. backed-up with contemporary evidence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,wyrdolafr
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 03:16 PM

oops, that was me above.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 03:22 PM

I've noticed another one on some of the BBC detective shows we watch: "seconded" to describe a temp. assignment of one cop to another "patch" than their own. Over here we would say SEC un dud. On the shows, it is seh CON did.

The "r" in wash, etc. came to Colorado from the South, as far as i know. Some of my family still pronounce it "warsh." Water has always been wah-ter.

I hear you, Bill. Drove me nuts when we first moved back to CO. No one broadcaster knew how to pronounce place names and proper names from our past, i.e Ouray is a town named after an Ute chief. It is supposed to be "you RAY" but they all say "OO ray" or somesuch. Likewise Montrose..they say MON (full stop) trose, whereas we would say mawn TROSE.

With the oil boom, there are a lot of places which get mangled in pronunciation such as Piceance Creek which we pronounce "pee ANTS Crick."

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 04:00 PM

My impression is that trying to pronounce foreign names in the way the foreigners would pronounce them is seen as a bit unpatriotic by some people, especially in the States. That can be true in the UK, but more typically attempting the foreign pronunciation is seen as the better thing to do, not so much as a matter of courtesy, but as a way of showing off - "I've been abroad you know..."

Americans don't seem to do it that way.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 04:14 PM

The only person I remember who said warter was a colleague from England. He also said Alabamer and generally added an 'r' to any word ending in 'a'. He was a graduate of Sheffield University, but I don't know if he came from that area.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 04:19 PM

Q, sounds like a Bristol accent to me. They stick an 'r' on the end of many words where there isn't one!

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 05:08 PM

Eliza, I disagree. One word ends, the sound dies, another begins. There is no glottal stop in the examples you have given.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 08:47 PM

Glottal stops are within words, such as O'ahu and Hawai'i.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Mike in Brunswick
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 12:30 AM

I knew a woman from Atlanta who pronounced a certain New England state Mass a TU setts.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 03:17 AM

I disagree, Q. Glottal stops can occur anywhere. I remember my sister saying, over half a century ago:

"I go'a ge my pe'icoa' on'"

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 04:21 AM

Those are within the words - in that they replace part of the word.   Eliza's first example was allegedly of glottal stops between properly completed words.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 05:46 AM

Eliza's example contains a glottal stop between two words - just because it's between "properly completed words" doesn't negate its existence.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 07:03 AM

A glottal stop is an interruption. Between an ended word and an unstarted word there is no such.

To quote: -

"Its manner of articulation is occlusive"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 07:17 AM

The stop in 'panda attack' [Eliza's example above] is a hiatus rather than a glottal stop. It sometimes gives rise to an intrusive r ['panda-r-attack'], which many, including me, dislike ~~ though it might be perhaps defended as analogous to the correctly used t in French 'y a-t-il?' - on the analogy presumably of 'il est' - 'est-il?'. No-one would object to the r being heard in 'particular occasion'; so a similar sound is introduced as a bridge, although not there in the spelling: as is approved usage in the French example above.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Jack Campin
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 07:19 AM

The glottal stop is there whether you see it as ending the first word, starting the second or floating between them.

Word boundaries are often arbitrary. There are phrases in English which translate word-for-word into long compound words in German. The breaks between the component words are no more audible in English; it's purely a spelling convention that English writes these phrases with spaces and German doesn't.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 09:37 AM

Try saying "panda attack" with and without the glottal stop. You'll hear and feel the difference.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 02:12 PM

Folks, please learn the difference between hiatus and glottal stop- see MtheGM post.

Having had to read much scientific German in connection with my work, I am well aware of the compound words, but their pronunciation has nothing to do with glottal stops.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 02:18 PM

Sorry but I do know what I'm talking about. The glottis forms a closure in between panda and attack. The Professor at Edinburgh Uni who taught us explained all this quite clearly. Glottal stops (and in fact any other sounds, eg devoicing or other closures) occur as speech flows, not always just between words.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 02:44 PM

The glottis shouldn't close between panda and attack. There is a small hiatus between the words.

(Of course Scots speech is peculiar to say the least. I remember asking for directions from the people at the next table when I was in Edinburgh. The dialect of many is difficult).

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 03:45 PM

Some people may have a hiatus. Others may have a glottal stop. Scots speech is peculiar to Scotland, English speech is peculiar to England, and Q's speech is peculiar to Q (check up 'idiolect').

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 03:53 PM

I just practiced saying 'uh...uh' as if they were the end of 'panda' and beginning of 'attack'. I can detect no glottal closure at at all.

On the other hand, there can easily be a glo'l in 'glottal.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 04:06 PM

Many people would pronounce it "pandratak". Or even "panratak". It's amazing we can understand each other so much of the time.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 04:47 PM

And obviously some Scots have no sense of humo(u)r.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/hiatus
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/glottal%2Bstop?q=glottal+stop

Hiatus
..."a pause or break in continuity in a sequence or activity:
Prosody and grammar- a break between two vowels coming together but not in the same syllable, as in the ear and cooporate.

Glottal stop
"a consonant formed by the audible release of the airstream after complete closure of the glottis. It is widespread in some non-standard English accents and in some other languages, such as Arabic, it is a standard consonant."

In Hawai'i, designated by ' (as previously posted).

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 05:11 PM

That's my story, and I'm sticking with it and with Eliza.

In a "careful" enunciation of "panda attack," the way they're most likely to do it on the news, there is both a pause (hiatus) and a glottal stop. Just say "attack," out loud, all by itself. It's difficult to do without the initial stop, and if you omit it you may sound like you're about to expire.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 08:49 PM

I guess we speak different dialects. I don't run the words together (McGrath examples), but no glottal stop, just a pause between the words when I 'enunciate'.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Howard Jones
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 03:28 AM

The pronunciations the OP is complaining about look like regional accents to me. Surely the same thing happens in the US? Is "Obama" pronounced exactly the same way in New Jersey and New Orleans?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 05:24 AM

As I pronounce , "the ear" has no glottal stop - instead there is a barely perceptible "y" in the gap. But "panda attack" does have a glottal stop. (That sort of differentiation is made more explicitly in Turkish, where the "soft g" letter has two distinct recognized pronunciations depending on whether it occurs between front or back vowels).

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 09:28 AM

I have learned, living in the UK, to use my singing pronunciation of the letter t in the middle of words in order to make myself more easily understood. No more diddo (ditto)and dayda (data) and wahteh for warder (water).

I have even given up on my own given name in this country as even when I introduce and correct several times, people still pronounce my name a timahra instead or Tamara (rhymes with camera). I now introduce myself as simply Tam which often gets a bit of argument because it is not common for women to shorten the name to one which means "boy" in Scots.

I give up.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 09:55 AM

Isn't "Tamara" Georgian?

My Georgian neighbour over the road pronounces her name the usual British way, ta-MA-ra. I didn't realize until just now that anybody rhymed it with "camera".

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 10:00 AM

As far as I can tell - and would expect - "Obama" is pronounced more or less the same everywhere, except that people with strong Southern accents will nasalize the central "a" (because it's followed by an "m").

The difference probably wouldn't register unless you're listening closely.

The stressed "a" in "Obama," of course, sounds like "ah," unlike the one in "Alabama" (which is like the one in "hat").

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 12:42 PM

I have tried pronouncing 'panda attack' with a glotal stop (see Jack Campin, above), but I can't manage it. I am very familiar with the glottal stop, and became used to using it in Hawai'i (common in Polynesian languages as well as Turkish, etc.); I pronounce panda attack with a short hiatus, but have to "wind up" and make a face when I try those words with a glottal stop.

As I said, we must speak different "dialects."

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 01:36 PM

I went to school in southeast Virginia with 5 other Tamaras (rhymes with camera) and in central Virginia had a Biology professor from the midwest with same pronunciation.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 01:46 PM

You may be trying too hard.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 02:40 PM

Tamara rhymes with Camera? You aren't likely to find anyone pronounce it that way in England, or I suspect anywhere outside America.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 03:53 PM

I know a Ta-mar'-a in Texas; no Tam'-er-a.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 04:58 PM

Well well well. These Georgians are singing the name as "TAM-er-a".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuY0I7IyUlA

Maybe they have different pronunciations of it there too.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: gnu
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 05:29 PM

Water, fer fuck sake. Ya wanna tip, get me a drink a fuckin water. Ya don't speak English? Let me spell it... w a t e r. There ain't no fuckin O in wAter and there ain't no fuckin AH in ER. Jesus H Christ! YOU guys WROTE the fuckin language and YOU can't fuckin pronounce it? What the fuck is that?

Somehow, tho, I don't believe that would have helped. Tho, ya just wanna say it, eh?

Try... my I ave some aitch 2 ow in a glahhhss?

Yeah... it's just pissin. But if Bill's wife had that much of a problen getting a quaff there is sommat wrong wif tha staff eh wha?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 06:53 PM

I've heard both Tamaras.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Allan Conn
Date: 01 Sep 12 - 07:11 PM

"it is not common for women to shorten the name to one which means "boy" in Scots."

Tam means boy? That's a new one on me!

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Mr Happy
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 12:22 PM

There's currently an ad on UK TV channels with some Americans talking about oranges.

The way they say it sounds like 'ornges' to me!

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 01:00 PM

The sound of orange often is close to 'ornge', the 'a' is given short shrift. In Canada also.

Digression:
Naranja, is Spanish for orange, from Arabic Naranj. Kids often say something that sounds like "nornge."
(naranjo means an orange tree, but in slang, it means an ignoramus, a 'noodle').

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 05:09 PM

St. John's, Newfoundland, chartered by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583; seasonal settlements ca. 1520;[2] informal year-round settlers before 1620.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 05:55 PM

We (not all 300,000,00 of us... but..) often DO say something like "ornge". That's an easy one to slur.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 06:14 PM

Heck, I still haven't become used to the way many Americans say pasta. Its pasta, past-a. Not Pauwsta! Look at the word. See how it is spelled!! I blame Julia Child. Just because she was the first person you ever saw who could cook anything but meat and potahtoes it doesn't mean you have to talk like her.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 08:53 PM

It would be simpler if British restaurants served water as a matter of course, as American eating places (used to?) do. The fact that you still have to ask is ridiculous.

Ross

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 01:30 AM

Why do the Americans think that the name of one of the world's top tennis players is a joke? ~~ nobody else calls him

Joke-ah-vitz

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Mr Happy
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 04:58 AM

I'm in UK & I've never heard anyone say 'pot -art- oes'

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 11:28 AM

My Italian wife says it's "pahst-a"... no 'W' sound, but not 'paasta'....

Subject: RE: BS: BBC America and names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 05:53 PM

Jokavitz plays Humoreski

What does the man on the street in Blighty call Djokovic?
Perhaps one in a thousand is Serbian and would call him JOCKovich.