Heaven: 2021 Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • Less piously, I was always impressed by the way a Texan colleague could effortlessly say "Sh-i-i-t" in three syllables when the rest of us could only manage one.

    When you hear it that way, it means you stepped in some pretty deep doodoo.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    BroJames wrote: »
    Hmm. This UK speaker would say that ‘air’ has the same vowel as ‘care’ or ‘there’, whereas ‘girl’ has the same vowel as ‘curl’ or ‘twirl’.

    Same here in Australia.

    I was this many days old when I discovered that 'squirrel' could also rhyme with 'girl'. Never occurred to me.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    BroJames wrote: »
    Hmm. This UK speaker would say that ‘air’ has the same vowel as ‘care’ or ‘there’, whereas ‘girl’ has the same vowel as ‘curl’ or ‘twirl’.

    All those are true for this Californian. But for me, "girl", "curl", and "twirl" also rhyme with "squirrel". It's just one of those things.

    I've been having fun with the "Go Away, Little Squirrel" thread. :wink:
  • While we're adding syllable's may I be allowed to digress to antipodean accents and note that I have come across both Kiwis and Aussies who say words like "known" and "grown' in two syllables - knowen and growen.
  • While we're adding syllable's may I be allowed to digress to antipodean accents and note that I have come across both Kiwis and Aussies who say words like "known" and "grown' in two syllables - knowen and growen.

    I dislike this quirk of pronunciation which in my observation occurs in Queenslanders rather than in other states of Oz. They also tend to pronounce flower as two distinct syllables (flow-wer). Many people think Australians all sound alike, but as a linguist I can assure them that there are distinct regional differences.
  • Yikes! I pronounce "flower" as two syllables, along with everybody else I know. Also all the similarly spelt words.
  • Yikes! I pronounce "flower" as two syllables, along with everybody else I know. Also all the similarly spelt words.

    How else could one possibly pronounce it???
  • Yes, I have lived in all States except Tasmania, and I’ve only heard it pronounced with 2 syllables. How do you think it should be pronounced?
  • Yikes! I pronounce "flower" as two syllables, along with everybody else I know. Also all the similarly spelt words.

    How else could one possibly pronounce it???

    Same as flour.
  • But that has two syllables too!
  • Hour too?
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited February 2021
    Yeah, afraid so. At least 1 and 2/3.

    Oh, and I remembered the word I was looking for, for those random not-quite syllables. "Glides."
  • Yikes! I pronounce "flower" as two syllables, along with everybody else I know. Also all the similarly spelt words.

    How else could one possibly pronounce it???

    Everyone I know in Tasmania says flour, rather than flow- wer which places emphasis on the second syllable
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I can't recall hearing flower as 2 syllables, just as flour.
    While we're adding syllable's may I be allowed to digress to antipodean accents and note that I have come across both Kiwis and Aussies who say words like "known" and "grown' in two syllables - knowen and growen.

    Can't remember ever hearing either of those.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 2021
    Flour/Flower contain a diphthong which depending on how you perceive the sound might sound like two syllables as there's movement within the sound. If you did emphasise the bilabial at the end of 'ou' and produced a distinct schwa following it then you would reach a sound that is effectively disyllabic.

    Some UK dialects tend to flatten this sound to "ah" - hence cockney "Lavvly Flahs". Other diphthongs too - my Bedfordshire mother (family with London roots so it could be either) would refer to electrical wahs and gas fahs.
  • IME U English used to pronounce flowers "flars"; cockney is more "flaas".
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Flour/Flower contain a diphthong which depending on how you perceive the sound might sound like two syllables as there's movement within the sound.
    Depending on accent or pronunciation, flower, flour, shower, hour and our contain triphthongs, the vowel sequence being ah-oo-uh(r). Trained singers are taught to be conscious of this, as dealing appropriately with diphthongs and triphthongs has a effect on how the words sound and are understood when sung.

  • In RP, 'flowers has two syllables.
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited February 2021
    rhubarb wrote: »
    Everyone I know in Tasmania says flour, rather than flow- wer which places emphasis on the second syllable

    I've never met anyone who placed the emphasis on the second syllable in flower.

    In standard English, the difference between a flower and a flow-wer (probably the punchline of a joke about rivers) is the pronunciation of the first vowel. It's an /aʊ/ diphthong in the plant, and an /oʊ/ diphthong in the river. But the emphasis is the same, and in neither case is the trailing r rhotic.

    The single-syllable people are, I think, pronouncing flower (and/or flour) with a triphthong.

    (Do people think flour and flower are homophones?)
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    (Do people think flour and flower are homophones?)

    They are in the part of southern England I grew up in.
  • (Do people think flour and flower are homophones?)
    They are in my experience in the American South.

  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 2021
    They're more than that - they are the same word. Flour is the flower (as in "the best part") of the wheat. The different spelling is mere convention.
  • They are in California and Missouri. And yes, that last r is rhotic here.
  • rhubarb wrote: »
    Everyone I know in Tasmania says flour, rather than flow- wer which places emphasis on the second syllable

    I've never met anyone who placed the emphasis on the second syllable in flower.

    In standard English, the difference between a flower and a flow-wer (probably the punchline of a joke about rivers) is the pronunciation of the first vowel. It's an /aʊ/ diphthong in the plant, and an /oʊ/ diphthong in the river. But the emphasis is the same, and in neither case is the trailing r rhotic.

    The single-syllable people are, I think, pronouncing flower (and/or flour) with a triphthong.

    (Do people think flour and flower are homophones?)

    Standard English in what country?
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Do people think flour and flower are homophones?

    And here also.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    In my experience of Canadian English, flour and flower are homophones.

    The similarity is behind this little joke in the movie "Stranger than Fiction", where a man gives a woman who owns a bakery a present: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74S5aT3_AfM
  • Gee D wrote: »
    Do people think flour and flower are homophones?

    And here also.

    Agreed. I come from central southern England and Mrs Claypool comes from the south west. We both say these words exactly the same.
  • Leaf wrote: »
    In my experience of Canadian English, flour and flower are homophones.

    This Canadian agrees.
  • Certainly they are for me.
  • Listening to the trump trial today, I heard a well educated American lady from the Caribbean refer to the floor, but it sounded (to me) like 'flo-or'. That was new to me.
  • I don't think they are. In this part of the world, they just are.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    KarlLB wrote: »
    They're more than that - they are the same word. Flour is the flower (as in "the best part") of the wheat. The different spelling is mere convention.

    Well there you go, I learned something new today.
  • Cornflour and cornflower are not homophones in my part of the UK.
  • Eirenist wrote: »
    Cornflour and cornflower are not homophones in my part of the UK.

    How are they different?
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    In standard English, the difference between a flower and a flow-wer (probably the punchline of a joke about rivers) is the pronunciation of the first vowel.
    The Britsh date the birth of the British cryptic crossword to a crossword setter who used, Flower (5), as the clue for river. You still occasionally get it as part of the wordplay in cryptic crosswords.

  • Eirenist wrote: »
    Cornflour and cornflower are not homophones in my part of the UK.

    Yes, that's interesting. I agreed with everyone saying that flour and flower are homophones, but when you add corn in front I think I do say them slightly differently. The best I can describe it is that cornflour has less of a w sound in it.

    I grew up near London.
  • Nope - I say cornflour and cornflower exactly the same.
  • TrudyTrudy Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Leaf wrote: »
    In my experience of Canadian English, flour and flower are homophones.

    The similarity is behind this little joke in the movie "Stranger than Fiction", where a man gives a woman who owns a bakery a present: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74S5aT3_AfM

    Agree with the Canadian pronunciation, and I love that scene.
  • Martha wrote: »
    Eirenist wrote: »
    Cornflour and cornflower are not homophones in my part of the UK.

    Yes, that's interesting. I agreed with everyone saying that flour and flower are homophones, but when you add corn in front I think I do say them slightly differently. The best I can describe it is that cornflour has less of a w sound in it.

    I grew up near London.

    I have been driven to walk around muttering "I cook with flour" and "I picked a flower" to the extent that I suspect the neighbours question my sanity as we pass 2 metres apart in the street. :smile:

    I make more of a w sound in flower, with or without corn attached.

    (I came to East Anglia from the Home Counties, via London.)
  • And yet flowerpot is trisyllabic...
  • As a NBer, I pronounce flour as two syllables.
  • Sojourner wrote: »
    And yet flowerpot is trisyllabic...

    And the u goes away between dolour and dolorous.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Caissa wrote: »
    As a NBer, I pronounce flour as two syllables.

    NBer? No idea what that is, I'm sorry.
  • New Brunswicker?
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Thanks, did not think of that. Alas, the new Ship does not give as much information about posters as did the old.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    I'm used to "flour" and "flower" being pronounce almost the same. Both are effectively two syllables. "Flour" is said more tightly, and "flower" with a more open mouth.

    And re what was said upthread about stressing "flo-WER": I've never hear that in any kind of English-language accent I've ever heard.
  • The talk of squirrel and girl reminds me of the thing where if you say "Space Ghetto" in an American accent, you sound like a Glaswegian saying "Spice Girl"
    (we've probably mentioned this before in the past 100+ pages but I'm too lazy to check)
  • Speaking of Canada. It appears they have interesting ways of confusing the rest of the world. See here.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Speaking of Canada. It appears they have interesting ways of confusing the rest of the world. See here.

    Yup, those are absolutely accurate. We are multilingual, we are.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Speaking of Canada. It appears they have interesting ways of confusing the rest of the world. See here.

    Yup, those are absolutely accurate. We are multilingual, we are.

    I was thinking Tri-Lingual at least.
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