Whenever I hear a British person speak a name [place, person] that ends in “bury,” I don’t hear a two syllable “burr-ee”–it always sounds like “Shrewsbree” or “Canterbree” or “Kingsbree.”
Is this standard pronunciation for all British names ending in “bury”?
Well, it’s not true of a few places that are actually called Bury ;). But yes, it’s usually pronounced “bree” or “bəry” with a schwa. I have heard some northern dialects in which the U is pronounced like the vowel sound in “wood”. Can’t think off the top of my head of any British accents in which it is pronounced “berry” (apart from the aforementioned places called Bury).
If the name is just “Bury”, then it’s two syllables. Bury St Edmonds is pronounced like “berry”; Bury in Greater Manchester can be “burry” or “berry” (it’s one of those cases where two pronunciations are common).
How do you pronounce Cadbury?
In Australia Cadbury is usually (if not always) pronounced Cadbree. I travel to the UK fairly often and I think it’s the same there.
This Brit certainly does.
Hampshire born I pronounce Newbury more like Newburee, Canterbury as Canterbree and Shrewsbury sounds right with either -bree or -buree.
Yup, bree most of the time.
And Edinburgh, at least where I live, is not pronounced “EdinbUrrow” as - in my limited experience, Americans like to say - but “Edinbruh”. Although I’ve been told that the “burrow” pronunciation does exist in some places in the UK, I’ve never heard anything but “bruh”.
As far as I cna tell form watching US TV, Americans tend to pronounce all the syllables clearly in a word (especially those ending in “ory” and the like, which is very pronounced), and will emphasize lesser words (conjunctives, things like “them” and stuff, whatever they’re called) clearly. So they’ll say “I gave it to them” with the “eh” sound in “them” very clear, while Brit treats the “them” as not much more than a grunt; “thm”.
It would never occur to this American to pronounce that as “Edinburrow”; I’d pronounce it as “Edinberg”.
However, there are other spellings which I would pronounce as “Edinburrow”, such as “Edinborough”.
How about Burberry?
I’ve heard two pronounciations for that one- Bur’bree, and something that’s approximated as Burbur-Ree.
To my ears it doesn’t sound wrong to to pronouce Canterbury, etc as “Canter-berry”, but “Canterb’ry” sounds slightly better…
Reminds me though of the joke about the Australian who asked if he was thw right train for “Loogaa-Booroogaa” (i.e. Loughborough - pronounced “loff-burra”)
TV does not (often) represent the typical speech of many Americans.
In my parts, “to them” is as likely to be heard as “toom” as anything else. The distinction from “to him” may be subtle indeed.
Or “War-sess-ter” (Worcestor), which is “Wuhster”.
Well, for example - an American would (I believe) say : La-boh-ra-tore-ee, while a British person would say La-boh-ru-tree (for Laboratory). It’s that “tore-ee” that I hear on US shows. Not just that word, obviously, but the tendency to cut out entire syllables seems to me to be far less common in the US.
British pronunciation will often dispense with entire syllables which are pronounced in American pronunciation. The “ory” thing is the most noticable one to me.
Some Americans’ pronunciation.
And anyone that has lived in London will have seen many Americans wondering where “Lay-cess-ter Square” is.
There is no consistency about pronunciation. Take “Witham” for instance. The Lincolnshire river by that name is pronounced “with-am”, while the Essex town is “wit-ham”.
Thus the “that I tend to notice on US shows”. I don’t pretend to have experience with more than a couple of cities in America.
UK television adverts (and most Brits I know, including myself) pronounce it with a schwa (CAD-b@-ree), but it’s very unstressed so you could hear it as simply CAD-bree.