Watching TV in my yoof in the 80’s you got used to the Americanised pronunciations of certain words.
I had always taken as read that the american pronunciation of Warrior was ‘Woy-er’ - completly omitting the double R for a Uhh sound.
The original series of BattleStar Galactica used this pronunciation to describe Apollo and Starbuck and the rest of the Viper pilots.
The UK pronunciation is worrier, worrior or worriah depending on regional location and inflection.
I then came to the personal conclusion that the Americanised pronunciation was based on the Native American Indian anglicized name for their tribes warriors as ‘Woy-er’ - whether that is correct or not is part of the question.
This I thought was confirmed during an episode of Baywatch were Hobie discovered an arrow head on some hill side in Malibu and the guys and gals in swimsuits endevour to have the site listed as an ancient burial ground.
Once again Hobie utters “Woy-er” and at some point a gnarly old indian poles up in a head dress to utter “The Woy-ers can sleep in peace once more …” or somesuch. Thereby almost comfirming my theory.
In the 90’s Buffy battled Native American braves and once more Xander was shooting from the lip about being stuck by some ‘Woy-er’ … theory is still going strong.
Then 10 years later I’m sitting in a hotel room in Bahrain watching Fox news and there is Bill O’Reilly plugging his book “Culture Worrier” (Culture Warrior)
What did I miss - which is it and are the Navajo involved?
Um, in the parts of the United States I grew up in, lived in, and still live in, it’s war-yer, at its worst (always the “r” sound prounounced). Usually it’s war-i-er or war-i-yer, with a very short “i” syllable in there.
Never heard anyone pronounce it woy-er or woy-yer (and having just rewatched the whole of the original Battlestar Galactica, do not recall them saying it in a way that dropped the “r”). I can easily imagin someone from the NorthEast dropping an “r”, though…
The first difficulty is establishing just which U.S. dialect is the one you wish to identify as “the” U.S. dialect.
I’m with DSYoungEsq in speaking (and hearing) WAR-yer most often. I will acknowledge hearing WOY-yer, as well, but I could not immediately place the origins of folks from whom I’ve heard it. (I do not ever recall hearing “worrier” which has a sound much closer to /oo/ in the first syllable in my region. In fact, the word worrier is most often pronounced pretty close to worry-er.)
So pick a few specific actors who give each pronunciation and let’s see where they grew up (and hope they have not had some odd speech coach mess up their native pronunciation).
I also say ‘war-ee-or’. (Or ‘war-ee-er’, really.) Definitely an ‘ar’ sound on the first syllable and not an ‘or’ sound.
On preview:
It’s funny how little I actually hear the word. (Unless someone is talking about a Piper, which doesn’t happen much nowadays.) But to me it’s always had three syllables.
Jeremy Jackson - Hobie - Newport Beach, California
Dirk Benedict - Starbuck - Helena, Montana
Robert Hatch - Apollo - Santa Monica, California
Nicholas Brendon - Xander - Los Angeles, California
If a few Californians chime in with Woy-yer as there favoured pronunciation then we have half an answer (Faceman may have just been trying to fit in)
