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Heaven: 2021 Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • I certainly wouldn't assume that visitors from across the Pond (or even elsewhere in the U.S.) would know how to pronounce "Mogollon" as in the Mogollon Rim in Arizona.

    (It's MUG-ee-yun, sort of.)

    Now let's try Ahwatukee, Estrella, Canyon de Chelly, Tlaquepaque, or even the seemingly obvious Tempe. Our place names are a mixture of Spanish, various Native American languages, and anyone else who happened to be passing through. ("Showlow" is named after a card game, but is pronounced as you would probably expect.)
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    And to the locals it's Embra anyway.
  • @Pigwidgeon
    Indeed, and our hard-to-pronounce local place names (mutilatingly anglicized from the local Salish language) become a shibboleth that we use to root out visitors and newbies. These include Puyallup, Yakima, Sequim, Spokane.
  • Firenze wrote: »
    And to the locals it's Embra anyway.

    In a similar way to how Glasgow is 'Glasgee'?

    On Spokane ... a question to Mousethief, if he's still speaking to me ...

    How is it pronounced? I've often wondered when I've seen it on maps.
  • Is it the 'h' that makes the difference to the pronunciation of Edinburgh, Scarborough and all the other 'burghs' and 'boroughs' in the UK? Why isn't it the g' or the 'gh'?

    Most Americans I've heard say it, say 'Edin-boro' which isn't how it's pronounced here, of course but presumably how place names ending in 'burgh' or 'borough' would be in their particular part of the US. I've heard other Americans say 'borough' as we would over here which adds to the mystery.
    I’m trying to make out exactly what pronunciation you’re describing for burgh and borough, GG. (And for what it’s worth, I think the only time burgh is encountered here is when something is named after Edinburgh. Borough, boro or burg are the common forms here.)

    FWIW, the standard pronunciation here, at least in my corner of “here,” is “BURR-uh.” That said, I grew up in a “borough.” Everyone from away pronounced that part of the town’s name as “BURR-uh.” But we locals pronounce it “brə.”
  • Well, it would seem - and I mean no value judgement here - that in your part of 'over there' the pronunciation in this respect is close to how it tends to be 'over here.'

    Over here Edinburgh tends to be pronounced as Edin-bruh, Edin-brah, Edin-burrah or Edin-burruh.

    What you won't hear is Edin-borroh which is how many US visitors seem to pronounce it.
  • Haworth rhymes with how and worth, GG. How, not hah.
  • It depends. Most people in West Yorkshire said HOW-orth when I lived up there but HA-worth wasn't unknown - but yes, you're right. Thinking about it, I used to say HOW-orth when I lived in Leeds.

    It must be late or I'm getting old.

    The point is that it was never HAY-worth just as Edinburgh isn't Edin-bro or Edin-borroh ...
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Is it the 'h' that makes the difference to the pronunciation of Edinburgh, Scarborough and all the other 'burghs' and 'boroughs' in the UK? Why isn't it the g' or the 'gh'?

    Most Americans I've heard say it, say 'Edin-boro' which isn't how it's pronounced here, of course but presumably how place names ending in 'burgh' or 'borough' would be in their particular part of the US. I've heard other Americans say 'borough' as we would over here which adds to the mystery.
    I’m trying to make out exactly what pronunciation you’re describing for burgh and borough, GG. (And for what it’s worth, I think the only time burgh is encountered here is when something is named after Edinburgh. Borough, boro or burg are the common forms here.)

    FWIW, the standard pronunciation here, at least in my corner of “here,” is “BURR-uh.” That said, I grew up in a “borough.” Everyone from away pronounced that part of the town’s name as “BURR-uh.” But we locals pronounce it “brə.”

    And just how would you pronounce it GG? And how would you pronounce Goonoo Goonoo?
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    I’m a ganother gnu ?
  • Try harder.
  • I would pronounce Edinburgh as Edin-BURR-uh. As Nick Tamen does.

    GooNoo GooNoo I would pronounce the Welsh way: 'GnwNw GnwNw'

    ;)

    Tip: w is a vowel in Welsh. It sounds like 'oo'.
  • That's odd, why did I use a capital N for the n's in 'noo'?
  • I thought Edinburgh succumbs to schwa, hence 'edinbrer'. Or indeed, 'embrer'.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    When I've heard Edinburgh pronounced in various travel shows and media--generally by Scots, I think--it sounded like "Edinbrah".
  • Yes, I can't type schwa, so I put things like embra or embrer. These also show phonetic contraction and assimilation, 'edin' = 'em'.
  • yep - any time we get Transatlantic visitors at work, we advise that if they want to blend in, an easy way to remember how to say it is to think of someone with their head in a bra
    'ed-in-bra
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    LOL.
  • I would pronounce Edinburgh as Edin-BURR-uh. As Nick Tamen does.

    GooNoo GooNoo I would pronounce the Welsh way: 'GnwNw GnwNw'

    ;)

    Tip: w is a vowel in Welsh. It sounds like 'oo'.

    Nothing at all to do with Welsh - many millenia earlier.

    A best I can key it in, it's pronounced "Gune genoo" The "u" is short, and each "e" is a very brief indeterminate one.

    And GG - somehow you have it wrong. Neither 'n' is capitalised.
  • Yes, I've just noticed that. I must have been confused. Perhaps I need a break or a shrink or both.

    I was meckin' with the Welsh reference. I should have typed 'gwnw gwnw' if I wanted to Welshify it.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    Some of the tiny towns around where I grew up had two names, mostly to do with mail delivery before there were zip codes. So, Salem (where I was a child) was known as Salem by the residents, but called Lamartine by the USPS. Knox, where I was a teen, had been Edinburg (no 'h'), which was pronounced EE-din burg.
    Just to throw another pronunciation into the mix! :wink:
  • I get the 'burg' thing in a US context, presumably from German influence, 'Gatlinburg in mid July ...' Gettysburg and so forth.

    Still seems quite a stretch to have an Edinburgh without an 'h' so that it becomes 'Edinburg'. But pronunciations and place names morph and change. I could understand it more if had had become 'Edinboro' as that's the way some - but by no means all - Americans seem to pronouncd the name of the Scottish capital. But there we go.

    There an conundrums all ways round.

    It always puzzles me as to why the Welsh have Welsh names/approximations for certain English and Scottish towns and cities and not others, for instance. Ok, I wouldn't expect there to be a Welsh name for Basingstoke, but why is there a Welsh name for Leicester - for instance - but not - as far as I know, for Lincoln or Peterborough?

    Perhaps a new thread could be to coin new names for places through the medium of Welsh ...

    Right, it's disappointing that the real Welsh word for microwave isn't 'popty ping' but we could have some fun - or a tidy crack - having a go along the following (non-place name) lines:

    https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/fun-stuff/24-welsh-words-phrases-just-6387661
  • I get the 'burg' thing in a US context, presumably from German influence, 'Gatlinburg in mid July ...' Gettysburg and so forth.

    Most people have heard of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (though the "h" was, for some reason, always dropped in P.G. Wodehouse books). But there's also a Pittsburg (no "h") in Kansas. I believe both cities are pronounced the same.
  • Yes, I've heard of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of course and until now have never considered how or why it might be pronounced any differently to how it is. I'd not heard of Pittsburg (no 'h') in Kansas.

    Odd how it's not occurred to me that the 'burgh' in Pittsburgh and Edinburgh might be pronounced the same or any differently to how they actually are pronounced. Familiarity does that.
  • I get the 'burg' thing in a US context, presumably from German influence, 'Gatlinburg in mid July ...' Gettysburg and so forth.

    Still seems quite a stretch to have an Edinburgh without an 'h' so that it becomes 'Edinburg'. But pronunciations and place names morph and change. I could understand it more if had had become 'Edinboro' as that's the way some - but by no means all - Americans seem to pronouncd the name of the Scottish capital. But there we go.

    There an conundrums all ways round.

    It always puzzles me as to why the Welsh have Welsh names/approximations for certain English and Scottish towns and cities and not others, for instance. Ok, I wouldn't expect there to be a Welsh name for Basingstoke, but why is there a Welsh name for Leicester - for instance - but not - as far as I know, for Lincoln or Peterborough?

    Perhaps a new thread could be to coin new names for places through the medium of Welsh ...

    Right, it's disappointing that the real Welsh word for microwave isn't 'popty ping' but we could have some fun - or a tidy crack - having a go along the following (non-place name) lines:

    https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/fun-stuff/24-welsh-words-phrases-just-6387661

    Already done that. I was born in Rhyd-y-Gwely and now live in Maesgaer, Swydd Trederw.

    The first one is a bit of a pun rather than a translation proper though.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited September 2019
    Yes, I've heard of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of course and until now have never considered how or why it might be pronounced any differently to how it is. I'd not heard of Pittsburg (no 'h') in Kansas.

    Odd how it's not occurred to me that the 'burgh' in Pittsburgh and Edinburgh might be pronounced the same or any differently to how they actually are pronounced. Familiarity does that.

    You heard of Pittsburgh in PA? I know it as Pittsburg. Seems like the maps accept both spellings. The h is certainly dropped as you go west in the US.

    This also happened with my mother's maiden surname. In PA it is Eigenbode, but when the family moved into Ohio it became Agenbroad. Funny thing about our family history. One branch moved on from Ohio moved into California and then Idaho. It became known as the lost branch since there was no contact for nearly 100 years. Then, in 1970 that branch came into contact with the Ohio branch again. My mother is a member of that lost branch. We have since kept up contact with both the Ohio and Pennsylvania branches.

    Going to some of the differences between England and the United States, I wonder if they started to develop after the Revolutionary War. I know Daniel Webster made a concerted effort to change the spelling of some words when he came out with his American Dictionary, but I wonder if certain differences developed because of the divergence of the culture. Same with Australia and NZ. I know we see differences in the three different branches in my family.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited September 2019
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    You heard of Pittsburgh in PA? I know it as Pittsburg. Seems like the maps accept both spellings.
    I don't think, however, that the City of Pittsburgh accepts both spellings—a fact I forgot when I said upstream that burgh is only encountered in the US in places named after Edinburgh.

    It is, however, uncommon in the US. The Wiki tells me that the other instances of burgh are Greenburgh, Hamptonburgh, Plattsburgh and Newburgh, all in the state of New York, and Edinburgh, Indiana. The Wiki also tells me that the last listed is pronounced "Edinburg."

  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Going to some of the differences between England and the United States, I wonder if they started to develop after the Revolutionary War. I know Daniel Webster made a concerted effort to change the spelling of some words when he came out with his American Dictionary, but I wonder if certain differences developed because of the divergence of the culture.

    Noah Webster. Daniel Webster was a congressman and Secretary of State.
  • I must have missed that, Karl.

    I can work out 'Maesgaer' - literally 'field-fort'* for those who don't know Welsh as well as KarlLB. The rest is beyond my limited South East Walian knowledge of Welsh but I could probably puzzle them out with a few prompts and lateral thinking. I may squirrel away at that task. You've got me thinking.

    * the English town has a Latin element for 'fort'
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    The 'gh' digraph used to be the Germanic 'ch' sound as in 'loch' I believe.
  • On the Revolutionary War - or War of Independence as we prefer to call it for some reason - well, although I have heard that the Colonists wouldn't have spoken that differently from people living in the British Isles at that time, I wouldn't be surprised if subtle differences had emerged by the 1770s. The latest linguistic studies suggest that it only took about 70 years for a distinctive New Zealand accent to emerge.

    They say the process would have been accelerated in NZ than the US and Canada or Australia because of its remoteness but I would imagine that in the US, with substantial levels of Dutch and German migration, there were additional factors at work.

    I wouldn't be at all surprised if US accents were beginning to diverge from British ones well before the Declaration of Independence but that the process gathered pace once the Colonies formed the nascent Republic. It's not as if all contact was severed though and the US went into quarantine. But the rate of divergence probably increased.

    I would imagine a similar process occurred with Spanish and Portuguese in Latin and South America as its constituent countries began to gain independence from Spain and Portugal.
  • And of course the divergence was happening on this side of the Atlantic at the same time. It isn't as if British accents and pronunciations haven't changed.
  • I don't know Welsh but I think 'Maesgaer' is Chesterfield (there's a mutation). 'Rhyd-y-Gwely' just might be Bedford.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Going to some of the differences between England and the United States, I wonder if they started to develop after the Revolutionary War. I know Daniel Webster made a concerted effort to change the spelling of some words when he came out with his American Dictionary, but I wonder if certain differences developed because of the divergence of the culture.

    Noah Webster. Daniel Webster was a congressman and Secretary of State.
    Wasn't there a devil involved with one of the Websters?

    Are batteries badderies where you live? Some people go to the bad room around here (bath room) and sex is sax among Hutterites, such that "during saxophone call's annoying", which is something one told me at a farmer's market some years ago. No more Hutterite cherry wine for me. (Hutterites here dress like Amish, talk peculiar German (to my ears), and use all the modern conveniences.)
  • Wasn't there a devil involved with one of the Websters?

    Yes. There was a short story and subsequent movie called "The Devil and Daniel Webster."
    Are batteries badderies where you live?

    Yes. Although I can't hear in my inner ear how somebody can pronounce the word with three syllables and accent on the first, and not voice the "tt". When I try to say it that way it sounds affected.

    We don't go to the bad room, although some people have said we say H2O as "wodder." Again it's the "t" following the stressed syllable. I've heard one English woman pronounce it "woe ah".
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    There is also an opera, "The Devil and Daniel Webster," by Douglas Moore (who also composed "The Ballad of Baby Doe). It is brief but quite effective.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Yes, I can't type schwa, so I put things like embra or embrer. These also show phonetic contraction and assimilation, 'edin' = 'em'.

    So, basically, the word "Edinburgh" gets all scrunched up? ;)
  • On the Revolutionary War - or War of Independence as we prefer to call it for some reason - well, although I have heard that the Colonists wouldn't have spoken that differently from people living in the British Isles at that time, I wouldn't be surprised if subtle differences had emerged by the 1770s. The latest linguistic studies suggest that it only took about 70 years for a distinctive New Zealand accent to emerge.

    Here in Australia, many South Australians speak with an accent not dissimilar to that of New Zealand. It has been suggested that this may be because both colonies were settled by free immigrants under schemes promoted by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, rather than the convict populations of the other Australian colonies, who were generally of lower social class.
  • On words like "Edinburgh"--In my school (American), we were outright taught that the final h in such words was a silent letter. In fact, in the form of English we spoke (I grew up in Los Angeles County) the language was chock full of silent letters, and nobody found it at all odd or expected random "h" or "k" or "x" consonants to bear any relationship to the pronunciation, because hey, we lived in a boiling cauldron of multiple languages all the time anyway, with multiple spelling systems, and life is just too short. Memorize the freaking spelling and get on with it. Unless you're a linguistic geek (partly guilty here) or have an unusually inquiring mind and lots of time on your hands.

    As it is, I just so happen to remember being taught to pronounce Edinburgh--and I will tell you why I, at least, would have said "Ed-en-burr-ah" before this thread (now I wouldn't say it for love or money, in any form!). It's because I was freaking taught to do so. Yes, some well-known fool whose identity I cannot remember is actually going around teaching innocent Americans that this is the correct pronunciation. So gather up your posse and see if you can hunt the offender down, and you can get rid of the mispronunciation once and for all! :wink:


  • You'd pass muster pronouncing Edinburgh that way in parts of the UK, Lamb Chopped. The key factor, for all the manglings and elisions is that it doesn't end with an 'oh' sound as it would if it were spelt 'Edinboro'.

    On the pronunciation of 'water', the English woman Mousethief heard say 'woe er' was probably from Essex and spoke a baleful form of 'Estuary English', an evil bastard child of Cockney.

    Last summer I overheard a US visitor ask for some 'wah-er' in a cafe to blank uncomprehending stares. His British hosts had to help him out.

    On Australian accents, I can detect Cockney and East Anglian elements in Australian speech. Whether that means there ancestors were convicts is a moot point. One would expect a lot more Irish in Australian speech if that was the case.

    As for the NZ accent having more affinity with posher forms of UK speech ... sorry, but I can't hear it. The NZ accent doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard over here.

    I stand to be corrected by the experts though.

    From what I've heard, the original settlers in NZ would have had Scottish, Irish, various English and Welsh accents and due to isolation very quickly began to lose those over the next generation or two as something emerged at a greater remove from how their parents and grandparents spoke.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    On accents, I'm currently watching "The Boys". One of the main characters, Butcher, was British in the original comic; here he sounds Australian to me, and is actually played by a Kiwi. I've noticed this in other American shows; it seems an Antipodean accent is generally accepted as British.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    On the pronunciation of 'water', the English woman Mousethief heard say 'woe er' was probably from Essex and spoke a baleful form of 'Estuary English', an evil bastard child of Cockney.

    Last summer I overheard a US visitor ask for some 'wah-er' in a cafe to blank uncomprehending stares. His British hosts had to help him out.

    Accents and dialects are without moral value, they are just differences.
  • Of course, but I don't think one can deny that they often (or even usually) come laden with cultural baggage which is hard to expunge from hearers' minds.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    On the pronunciation of 'water', the English woman Mousethief heard say 'woe er' was probably from Essex and spoke a baleful form of 'Estuary English', an evil bastard child of Cockney.

    Please don’t be rude about other people’s accents, and FYI, while Estuary English and Cockney are part of the same accent family, Estuary English is not derived from Cockney.
  • There is a consonant in the pronunciation 'woe er'. It's a glottal stop, not a diphthong. The glottal stop is present in most (possibly all) English dialects, just not invariably as the middle letter in 'water'. It's not particularly rare in other languages.
  • plenty of Scots use gluttal stops (gluh-uhl stops) and would talk about a bo-uhl of wah-ur

  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    On words like "Edinburgh"--In my school (American), we were outright taught that the final h in such words was a silent letter.
    As I began saying, 'gh' used to be the Germanic 'ch' sound, which no longer occurs in standard English. Once upon a time all those words ending in '-ough' were all pronounced the same way.

  • "Water" comes with a glottal stop in many dialects. It's difficult to transcribe Cockney and Essex, but woe-ah is quite close. "Milk" is a bit like mi-oak. I was starting to puzzle over glottal stops in Mancunian, but come on, that bottom field needs some work doing.

    Evil bastard child? WTF.
  • Yes. And we all do it. We all make those value judgements. That's not to excuse the way I've acted on this thread, though. I deserved the Hell Call for the way I responded to some of our US posters. I make no excuses. I deserved the roasting.

    Some years ago there was an interesting experiment where they played recordings of 10 regional UK accents to a British audience and asked them to rank them in order of which ones they preferred and which they disliked. The results were very consistent with the Cockney and Birmingham accents at the bottom of the likes list and Geordie and various Scottish accents at the top.

    When they played the same recordings to US participants with less associations with the regions represented the results were both far more varied and with very different outcomes on the like/dislike scale.

    The researchers concluded that this was because the Americans didn't have the same kind of associations with the regions from whence the accents came.

    That doesn't mean that all the British participants hated Cockneys and Brummies, simply that there were more than purely 'aesthetic' considerations in play.

    I'll hold my hand up. I deplore some of the developments in Estuary English and much prefer the older forms of Cockney, Essex and Kentish accents from which it derives. I am well aware that it is a value judgement and entirely irrational in that I object less to the northern equivalent which is spreading across both sides of the Pennines, but mourn the passing of some of the more distinctive regional accents and dialects that were spoken up there when I first lived in the area in the late '70s/early 1980s.
  • Ok, 'Evil bastard child' was hyperbole and I withdraw it.

    As for Estuary English not being a direct derivation from Cockney but part of the same family of accents, then yes, I accept that too.
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