# British pronunciation **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 23, 2018, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088 "2018-08-23T01:32:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/21 "2018-08-23T16:05:29Z")
> [@MrFloppy](#): > > The car in the UK is a Jag-you-are. Which is correct. > > In the US it seems to be a Jag-wire. Not sure I’ve ever heard what I would write out as “jag-wire,” but that could be an accent difference. It’s more like “jag-wahr,” or /dʒæɡwɑɹ/. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/22 "2018-08-23T16:12:15Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I assume this is it. I’ve never heard a Brit pronounce “India” as “Indier” unless the next sound is an immediate vowel sound. My boss is british and I have a great time in meetings noting his linking 'r’s. I have no idea if he’s aware that he does it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/23 "2018-08-23T16:32:36Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > My boss is british and I have a great time in meetings noting his linking 'r’s. I have no idea if he’s aware that he does it. It seems like something that would absolutely be natural and instinctive if you grew up in a dialect that has it. I’m sure there are quirks in my South Side Chicago dialect that I am completely unaware of unless it’s pointed out to me. I think such is the nature of dialects. ---
**Author:** ![blob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blob/32/489_2.png) [@blob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blob)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/24 "2018-08-23T22:24:14Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > And it’s also spelled differently, so it’s not just a matter of US vs UK pronunciation. True, but the “oo” as “you” is universal. “It’s not a toomah!” is “It’s not a t-you-muh” So, what do Americans do instead of this linking “r”. I haven’t ever really noticed it at all. How would they be pronouncing something like “India(r) is” ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/25 "2018-08-23T22:29:31Z")
Beatles fans are nodding… There were birds in the sky But I never sawr them winging No, I never sawr them at all Till there was you ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/26 "2018-08-23T22:49:33Z")
> [@blob](#): > > So, what do Americans do instead of this linking “r”. I haven’t ever really noticed it at all. How would they be pronouncing something like “India(r) is” As “India is” without the linking-r. It’s just not in most of our dialects (I believe it exists in some northeast accents.) We don’t have any other linking sound that I know of, if that’s what you’re asking. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/27 "2018-08-23T22:51:52Z")
> [@K364](#): > > Beatles fans are nodding… > > There were birds in the sky > But I never sawr them winging > No, I never sawr them at all > Till there was you Hmm…maybe it’s in the studio version, but I don’t have it. I don’t hear it [in this live take](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=21165512&posted=1#post21165512) (at 0:50-ish.) ---
**Author:** ![Skinnybones\_Lampshade](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skinnybones_lampshade/32/2872_2.png) [@Skinnybones\_Lampshade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skinnybones_Lampshade)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/28 "2018-08-23T23:34:54Z")
**pulykamell** , in this version it’s very obvious; listen to 0:28 - 0:34 for two big, juicy linking r’s: [- YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmoVk-9rc4E) ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/29 "2018-08-23T23:42:26Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Not sure I’ve ever heard what I would write out as “jag-wire,” but that could be an accent difference. It’s more like “jag-wahr,” or /dʒæɡwɑɹ/. A Jag-wahr is encountered on the road or in the jungle. The Jag-wires play in Jacksonville. ---
**Author:** ![blob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blob/32/489_2.png) [@blob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blob)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/30 "2018-08-23T23:50:29Z")
> [@Skinnybones\_Lampshade](#): > > **pulykamell** , in this version it’s very obvious; listen to 0:28 - 0:34 for two big, juicy linking r’s: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmoVk-9rc4E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmoVk-9rc4E) hmm, yes, I can definitely hear that. I was curious as to how other singers handle it. I think Shirley also does it (although not as obviously as Paul) (at around 1.40-ish). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLDsLeVxOaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLDsLeVxOaU) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/31 "2018-08-24T01:38:34Z")
> [@Skinnybones\_Lampshade](#): > > **pulykamell** , in this version it’s very obvious; listen to 0:28 - 0:34 for two big, juicy linking r’s: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmoVk-9rc4E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmoVk-9rc4E) Oh, my, yeah, that’s certainly there. Is that use of an intrusive-r common in certain English dialects? That one just doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m just wondering if that might just be affectation. ETA: Wait a sec…now that I think about this, this is bringing back memories of maybe a thread here. I seem to recall the explanation being that Paul was trying to sing in an American accent, and somehow overcompensated by adding those "r"s where they just don’t belong (because English accents often drop "r"s where we expect them). Yes, I’m pretty sure that was the explanation, not that it was usual in any UK accent to insert "r"s in that place. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/32 "2018-08-24T01:52:16Z")
Yeah, just quickly googling it, I found [this](http://positiveanymore.blogspot.com/2006/06/trudgill-on-pop-song-pronunciation.html): In the fourth paragraph, the author of that page quibbles a bit with the notion that the “sawr” pronunciation was the type of hypercorrected rhoticism to sound American I mentioned above (he says the point is “entirely plausible”) but he chalks up the extra “r” to "[being] goofy and self-mocking so that no one could tease him for singing a moldy oldie like ‘Till There Was You.’ " In either case – whether hypercorrection or done in lighthearted whimsy, it’s not a standard pronunciation of “saw” in that context in UK English. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/33 "2018-08-24T04:06:06Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > ETA: Wait a sec…now that I think about this, this is bringing back memories of maybe a thread here. I seem to recall the explanation being that Paul was trying to sing in an American accent, and somehow overcompensated by adding those "r"s where they just don’t belong (because English accents often drop "r"s where we expect them). Yes, I’m pretty sure that was the explanation, not that it was usual in any UK accent to insert "r"s in that place. There’s a great clip of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint trying to do their best american accents back when they were young teens and Rupert says “mozzareller sticks” because he knows that he drops R’s but doesn’t know where and when to put them back to sound American. Great example of the difference between langue and parole. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/34 "2018-08-24T13:23:09Z")
Had a friend from England, named Donna Alexander. We were all amused by the way she just moved the R: _“Donner Alexandah”_ ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/35 "2018-08-24T15:54:00Z")
> [@blob](#): > > So, what do Americans do instead of this linking “r”. I haven’t ever really noticed it at all. How would they be pronouncing something like “India(r) is” The closest American speakers have to a “linking consonant” is using “a” or “an” depending on whether the following noun begins with a vowel or consonant sound. Such as “an apple” or “an honor” compared to “a day” or “a unit”. I believe that’s a common grammatical rule among all English speakers, am I wrong? It’s just the only linking consonant I’m aware of common among American dialects. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/36 "2018-08-24T16:27:38Z")
> [@blob](#): > > So, what do Americans do instead of this linking “r”. I haven’t ever really noticed it at all. How would they be pronouncing something like “India(r) is” With a glottal stop? ---
**Author:** ![blob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blob/32/489_2.png) [@blob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blob)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/37 "2018-08-25T00:33:43Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > With a glottal stop? Sure, is there a good example on youtube to hear the difference? Anyone have suggestions, who is a good American to listen to? ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/38 "2018-08-25T00:45:47Z")
A glottal stop is that pause that happens when you say “uh-oh”. Here’s Auli’i Cravalho (whose name has a glottal stop) saying some words in Hawaiian, which has plenty of glottal stops: [Hawaiian Words & Phrases with Moana's Auli'i Cravalho | Teen Vogue - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZYT5GnyMVQ) For that matter, here’s how to pronounce Hawai’i, which has a glottal stop: [How to pronounce hawaii - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef0H3GJYaBI) ETA: Crap, I now realize the question was “With a glottal stop?” rather than “What’s a glottal stop?”. Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/39 "2018-08-25T01:29:05Z")
There is a big problem in some languages with pronouncing two vowels in a row without a consonant in between. This has led English to slur any adjacent vowels together, which is why almost always two adjacent vowels in English are today pronounced with a single sound or at least a diphthong, and that you’re “supposed to” (like the New Yorker) put a diaeresis over the second vowel if they’re pronounced separately. Never mind that diaeresis has three consecutive vowels pronounced as two different sounds, and has no diaeresis on any of them at Wikipedia. The vast majority of the time a diaeresis would be used in common nouns would be when you add a prefix ending in a vowel to a word beginning with a vowels, such as co-operate or re-emerge. It also occurs in proper names like Zoe. English as it is written by commoners has decided that its spelling doesn’t reflect it pronunciation very much anyway, that you need to know how each individual word is pronounced regardless, and we don’t want no diacritics never since they’re too hard to type compared to regular ol’ letters, so it’s faded away except in the most high class of publications. Other languages have absolutely no problem with vowels butting up against each other. Japanese has basically the opposite thing going on, where two consonants next to each other is extremely rare, and only occurs in the middle of a word with the first one being an ‘n’ (also the only consonant that can end a word). And they string vowels together all the time. There’s a sumo wrestler in the top division (actually, in the second now; he was in the first for a bit though) whose ring name is “Daiamami”. The cluster of three vowels after the initial letter looks really weird to English speakers, but part of that is the Romanization process. In Japanese it’s 大奄美 Dai-ama-mi, with “Dai” being a very common prefix (meaning “big/great”) for sumo wrestlers (the other two kanji not so much). Each vowel is pronounced separately, and it isn’t all that weird when you hear it pronounced, despite looking extremely odd in Romaji. Check out [- YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6251OET42NY). You’ll also get to hear the the pronunciation of “Aoiyama”, which is similar but probably not as weird as the -aia- cluster in English. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088/40 "2018-08-25T07:00:05Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > Other languages have absolutely no problem with vowels butting up against each other. Try Tagalog, where _maaalaala_ is a legitimate word, and you are supposed to vowel distinctly - ma-a-ala-ala. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-pronunciation/820088.md?page=1)