Heh… actually, I think it’s because, in John’s example
I’m adding emphasis to the word “month” since he’s got it in quotes. If I just say, “This is the month that Christmas comes,” then I do just elide the first “th” sound.
A bit belated, but embouchure is a word that describes the position of your mouth/throat/tongue when playing a wind instrument. It is from the French “bouche” (mouth) and the most poetic translation I’ve heard for the word is “the mouth of the river” (the river being the instrumentalist’s sound).
And yes, I would like some eggs. 
Oh, I’m stealing that!
May I register my astonishment that the question of how to pronounce “months” has called forth a full 63 (or is it now 64?) opinions.
was castle ever pronounced with the “t” sound?
Residents of a town can determine the name of that town. If they want to call it wusta, no skin off my nose. But if you are going to tell me that it was not at one time pronounced worse-ter, I’d disagree.
Your other examples are the same bad example. Silent letters aren’t “lazy”. they may be stupid, but they are not part of lazy speech.
Are you a linguist?
Yes, I’ll call you lazy. I think most people would agree that in a formal setting, gonna is not proper (whatever that is), but an easy contraction of going to. If you were giving a speech, would you actually say “gonna” or “going to”?
Like it or not, we are judged on our speech. Whether or not a linguist would agree with me, I don’t know. But speaking in a loose style tends to make one sound less educated, whether or not that is actually the case. Sorry. I didn’t make the rules.
SMACK
Keep up–we’re on castles now.
You haven’t examined the basis for the “rules” you advocate. Why do you insist on blindly upholding them and refusing to educate yourself? Part of being a good academic is recognizing your biases, getting rid of the ones with no grounds in reality, then owning up to ones you have left.
When you say or think pronunciation is what it is, it’s not my fault that lazy people don’t bother enunciating properly, you’re upholding an artificial construct. There exist NO “laws” of natural language (or whatever such nonsense you’re trying to peddle). “Right pronunciation” is not a universal law. Language is merely a tool for communication within a single species, not an end in itself.
You’re the only person in this thread advocating that alternative pronunciation implies laziness. That indicates a lot about your biases. Do us a favor and please educate yourself, because you’re coming off light-years more ignorant than you think you are.
Basically, your use of the term “lazy speech” is simply you projecting your perception of the laziness of lower-class folks or non-whites onto the way they speak. Stop being racist and classist and do some research. There are plenty of people in this thread who’ve pointed you in the right direction. Stop it.
I think it is fine if you want to believe that people who ‘speak in a loose style’ sound uneducated. But you should know that there are many lovers of language who study their entire lives and have decided that descriptive linguistics is perfectly cromulent. If you want to claim that linguists like Leonard Bloomfield sound uneducated, well…that seems a bit silly to claim.
Yes, and in fact was often spelled “castel.”
And the initial letters in gnome and knife were pronounced too. And Wednesday was Woden’s day, and February was pronounced with two r sounds. Great and grate were pronounced differently. So were whales and Wales (and they still are by some people; are the rest of us lazy?).
Are you? Why don’t you provide a cite from a peer reviewed linguistic journal that supports your claim about “lazy English”. If you can’t, then you don’t know what you’re talking about.
First of all, you are now introducing the concept of a “formal setting”. But that’s really besides the point. Whether or not a layman classifies you as “less educated” is nether here nor there. We are talking about what you call “lazy English”. If you have a cite other than your own opinion, let’s see it. If not, just admit you don’t know what you’re talking about and stop spreading ignorance in a forum dedicated to fighting ignorance.
It’s not “lazy”, but it certainly a matter of “know your audience” and choose your words carefully to speak to them. Good communicators will often choose different diction levels and dialects based on the situation. If I am giving a speech, I may choose “gonna” or I may choose “going to” depending on who I am speaking to, what the level of discourse is, and how I want to be perceived. In a measured, formal debate, I’ll pick “going to,” of course. In a causal speech to a group of peers or people I identify with and who I want to identify with me, I may choose a less formal dialect of English and go with “gonna.” It’s not a matter of one being more “lazy” than another. When I speak to people I grew up with, I use grammatical constructions that I know are “wrong” or non-standard like “Can you borrow me a buck?” or “Can I come with?” or “How youse guys doin?” because that’s how we talk here, and that’s the language I grew up with. I’ll switch over to a more standard dialect when I speak to non-natives.
I do agree that it is important for students to learn the prestige dialect of English and to know how to speak in a formal manner when it is necessary to do so, because, like you said, whether we like it or not, we are often judged by how we speak. But it works both ways. “Proper” English isn’t always right for the circumstance. And pronunciation, especially, has nothing to do with laziness. An accent is an accent. Are the Brits lazy for dropping rs?
Yeah, sorry, I should have quoted Stink Fish Pot! Though it was a general comment on the discussion of ‘lazy’ speech.
Of course, all British (or even English) people do not speak the same. Rhoticity varies a lot. Plus, often where you consider them to be ‘dropped’, I consider many American (and Irish, and Scottish) accents to be adding them. For example, the words; cars, tyre, doors, first, furniture etc. In England, most accents, Received Pronunciation included, are not rhotic.
This was taken even further in America it seems. Kennedy often said things like “Africa(r) and Asia(r)”, since rhoticity was becoming more prestigious.
But we’re not talking about formal settings. Arguably, formal settings are exceptions. That’s not how we normally use language, and isn’t what is being discussed in this thread as far as I’m aware. It’s not lazy to be efficient with language in everyday situations.
Also, what rules? Who made them, if you didn’t?
No, I don’t think those are good examples of the added “r”. You’d find it on “China(r)”, but not Africa. And I don’t think it has anything to do with prestige… that’s just a normal part of many New England accents.
(Fake Tales – Yes, sorry for not being more specific. I meant in the stereotypical RP British English which is probably what most Americans think of when they think of a “British accent.”)
How does rhoticity work in New England accents? Is it the same as in many British accents, where the intrusive “r” only appears as a liaison between two vowel sounds (for example you’d hear it as “Africa(r) and Europe” but not in “Africa needs aid.”
munce for months.
month for month.
just easier to say.
You shouldn’t answer a question with a question. That’s just bad manners. And if you don’t like the term “lazy english”, pick your own term. The point is, you know what I’m saying, even if you don’t like the phrase I chose.
There seems to be a lot of sensitivity to the word lazy. John, if you are indeed a linguist, please cite away. But if you are sensitive because people make fun of your lisp, well I’m sorry about that.
To quote Buddy Hinton:
“Baby talk, baby talk
it’s a wonder you can walk”
That was a joke, monitors. And John Mace. My apologies in advance. 
Have you even googled “lazy english”? For someone so sure it doesn’t exist, a lot of people would disagree with you. “Lazy speech” is a popular phrase too. Maybe it isn’t the phrase you read in your linguistic book. My apologies. Feel free to substitute your own.
I don’t advocate any “rules”, except one, if you want to call it a rule. When you look a word up in the dictionary, there is a pronunciation guide for that word. That should indicate to anyone with a brain that whoever put the effort into giving the word a default pronunciation did not do so to waste his/her time. If you look at that pronunciation as the default, or normally accepted version, any variations from that are NOT the way the word was intended to be spoken.
Thank you Professor! And bottle-nosed dolphins have a different accent to their squeaks than their closely related relatives, the spinner dolphins. People from the deep south US, UK, Australia, NYC, and South Africa all speak differently. But for the most part, we can understand each other well enough to communicate. There is no artificial construct because there is no construct. See the answer in the previous note. The only thing I view as a baseline is the pronunciation guide found in the dictionary. If those guides didn’t exist, then each word would be a free for all. But since they do exist, I would say that gives us all a default pronunciation to start with. And it isn’t my fault that people don’t enunciate their words properly (and I’m guilty of that as well - I’m no Diane Chambers). But I never said those people were lazy. I said their english was lazy. There is a big difference, one which you failed to recognize.
:rolleyes:
Again, I have never implied laziness of the person. Lazy english does not mean lazy person, at least not to me. It seems to me that you have made that connection in your politically correct and holier-than-thou head. Your knee-jerk reaction certainly indicates that you think you know me and you are coming from a much more superior moral high ground. Perhaps you can do us a favor and educate yourself, because you are coming off light-years more ignorant than you think you are.
The third paragraph in a row of yours telling me how I view people from how they speak. Because I think that when someone says “boaf” instead of “both” they are being lazy in their speech, that doesn’t mean that person is lower-class or non-white. That is your baggage. I’ve heard educated white people use the word AXE instead of ASK in normal conversation. That’s lazy too, but it doesn’t mean these people don’t have jobs. You have shown yourself to be incredibly myopic in your answers. Thank goodness you are here to show me the error of my ways. :rolleyes: The only thing worse than a pious poster is an incorrect pious poster.
And if you don’t think that people are judged on their ability to speak, I would say you are extremely naive. Tell you what. When you hear a news anchor, CEO of a company, or the president of your favorite country say something like… “The country is gonna celebrate the forf of July, the nation’s birfday in grand style.” Let me know. I’ll stand corrected. (the head of Death Row Records does not count)
And before you all over-react again, when I said I would consider John Mace to be lazy when he presented his scenario, I meant his speech, not his person.
There isn’t necessarily any such thing.
Sure. And I find a lot of sites debating on whether American English is “lazy English.” “Lazy” is a stupid descriptor for a regional accent.