Re: Oh no not again grrr


"Jane Vernon" <jane@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Au-dnfGEUJ_nkdfeRVnytQ@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Marjorie Clarke wrote:
>
>> An awful lot of Rs in English-English are not pronounced at all
>> ("car")
>
> IANALinguist, but here in the west, native speakers do pronounce the
> letter r in most words (possibly all, but if I say that I am bound to find
> exceptions.) One way of looking at it is that everybody else is
> "dropping" the r as some people drop the h at the beginning of a word. It
> may be viewed as a regional accent, or the correct way of pronouncing the
> letter r.

You're quite right, there are large areas of England (much of the north and
west) where the "rhotic R" is still prominent, as well as in America, Oz,
Scotland, Ireland, etc. But in RP and south-eastern English, the R in words
like "target", "surely" "northern" or "Vernon" has the function of
lengthening the vowel but is not pronounced of itself. I'm not trying to say
that either way is correct, simply that there are different ways of dealing
with R, but it's possible to argue that the dropped R of south-east and RP
English is a sloppy, degenerate habit.
>
> or often turned into something close to a W sound ("fried
>> rice"),
>
> I'm not sure I can imagine this one.

Thnik Jonathan Ross.... I know he's an extreme example, but many RP speakers
(particularly men, for reasons no one can fathom) come quite close to this.
You'd have heard lots of examples in the Tory conference speeches.
>
>> Also, there are two main ways of making an L sound, the "light" and
>> the "dark" L. The light one is used as an initial ("lend") while the
>> dark one (again, much more a feature of English-English) comes at the
>> end of a syllable ("hill") and often resembles a W or a OO sound.
>
> Shirley, although many people do pronounce this way, it is in fact a
> *mis*pronounciation? I mean, l is meant to sound like l, not w.

Even a Scot will make a slight difference between the two Ls, as a natural
result of the position of the L in the word, and the adjoining sounds. But
if you listen carefully to many RP speakers, the L is not really audible in
some words - the little flip of the tongue on the palette that finishes off
the L-sound just doesn't happen (I know, I know, flip-of-the tongue is extra
....). Think of words like "stillness" or "foolproof", where the L can almost
disappear, in contrast with "pullover" and "foolish" where the L is always
pronounced because it's the only consonant between two vowels.

Again, it's not a matter of right and wrong, it just varies. The Scottish
(and similar) pronunciations sound more "right" to me, but they may sound a
bit quaint to southern English speakers who speak RP or Estuary English.
Some would say the more careful and phonetic pronunciations like many Scots
ones are older or even archaic, and that the modern ones that evolve in
places where the language is changing faster are "correct". Having said
that, I like to hold on to the more phonetic pronunciations, as I think that
on the whole they make speech clearer and more intelligible.

--
Best wishes,

Marjorie


--
Best wishes,

Marjorie


.

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