Dialect survey

[stormerne]

Here's a subject that fascinates me. We spell the words we write the same way as most other English speakers. But how do we pronounce those words?

Here's a survey.
How do you pronounce the following five words?
Which words do you pronounce the same as other ones on the list?
Which do you pronounce differently?
And if you had to give a name to your dialect, what would it be?

Here's the list:
1: pause
2: paws
3: pours
4: pores
5: poor's

I'll go first. I pronounce all these words identically!

Well, OK - I pronounce numbers 1 to 4 exactly the same, but there is a very slight difference in number 5 that only a trained ear would notice. (I make the vowel in number 5 into a slight dipthong with a very short initial 'oo' before going into the same vowel I use for all the others.) And I certainly don't pronounce the post-vocalic 'r's in 3, 4 or 5 that many Americans do.

And I'd say I have a slight North England accent.

How about you?

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

I pronounce the first two the same:

Paa - zz , or something like that.

And the last three the same.

pO - errs

I am 'West Coast Canadian' And I write 'eh' a lot.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

1,2,4 I pronounce these about the same
3 and 5 is a little different, with a more straight danish O-sound, and much more of the U in it.

I guess my "dialect" would be danish, but how can I tell?

 

[allan]

1 and 2 the same (I'd say the "aw" as in "saw", except you probably pronounce that differently too!); 3-5 the same.

Actually I've heard that the "American" pronunciations are closer to the old Anglo-Saxon than modern British ones: like "war"--Anglo-Saxon "warre"--British pronounce it like "woe" (well, a little differently, but close).

My accent is Minnesotan, dontcha know.... I often pronounce "ou" as "o"--like about (a-bote), house (hoess), etc. and I drop the "g" from "ing"-ending words (that's common, but we in the northland ALWAYS do it). Wasn't even aware of having an "accent" until I moved out east (lived in Pennsylvania for awhile) and people told me I did....

 

[allan]

How do you guys handle that ambiguous, plural "you"?

In Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh area) they say "yins", or sometimes "yous"....

Down south, and among black Americans everywhere, they say "y'all" (short for "you all")....

Here in Minnesota, we either say just "you" or else "you guys"--I'll often say "y'all" though, since I have a few black friends....

How do they handle this ambiguity across the pond, or in other areas?

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

1 & 2 the same
3 & 4 the same
5 similar but disernably different to 3 & 4

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

1-2 the same.

3-5 the same.

 

[JellyDonut]

Originally posted by allan
How do you guys handle that ambiguous, plural "you"?

In Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh area) they say "yins", or sometimes "yous"....

Down south, and among black Americans everywhere, they say "y'all" (short for "you all")....

Here in Minnesota, we either say just "you" or else "you guys"--I'll often say "y'all" though, since I have a few black friends....

How do they handle this ambiguity across the pond, or in other areas?

I say "you" for both forms, because that's how I was taught in English class.

However, we Germans don't have that problem, at least when speaking familiarly. We use "du" for the singular and "ihr" for the plural, but "Sie" when speaking politely. French has two forms also. "Tu" for singular informal, "vous" everywhere else. Russian "TbI" and "BbI" work similarly. Spanish has four forms. "Tú" for the singular informal, "vosotros" for the plural informal, "usted" for the singular polite and "ustedes" for the plural polite.

English "you" seems pretty simple, huh? This simplicity appealed to Ludovic Zamenhof when he incorporated it in Esperanto as the word "vi." And I think the person/people with whom you are speaking will know how many of them there are

With regard to the original intention to this thread, I will point out that no dialect distinguishes "pause" and "paws." I pronounce the other three the same way. It's just easier that way.

 

[Flatlander Fox]

1-2 The same...

3-5 The same...

I am from Midwestern USA and have no accent...



We speak PURE english there .

 

[Smash]

1,2-same
3,4-same
5...more of an oo sound.Like Poo-or

 

[BlueMonday]

Whenever I say the short "a" sound, my old Philadelphia accent kicks in and I draw it out. Not as much as a New Yorker or a New Englander would but I still end up saying "pAAws" with the almost indescribable New Englandish accent.

numbers one and two I actually say differently with "pause" having a stronger "u" sound whereas in "paws" I have almost no "u" sound and end up saying it like "pa-s."

Numbers three and four I say the same but with number five the "o" sound comes out longer -almost to the point of being a "u" sound.

 

[duke o' york]

I pronounce them all the same way because, like Stormerne, I'm from the North of England - Geordie though like.
How do yous across the pond pronounce "porous"?

 

[Siggy]

1&2 the same
3 & 4 the same
5 slighty different than above

I guess I have a dutch accent when speaking english.

 

[stormerne]

Thanks everybody for that!

So far it seems that Americans pronounce 1-2 the same, and 3-5 the same.
English people pronounce all five the same.
Non-English Europeans - seems like it depends where they learnt English! Maybe too early to say.

And a few of us from various countries have a slight difference on 5.

I'd still be interested in the input of other non-English Europeans. (For instance, would Shadowdale be able to pronounce any of them after a couple of beers? ) And from other non-American and non-Europeans.

 

[SlowwHand]

1,2 and 3,4,5 alike.
At least in my mind.
I really don't know how it sounds to someone else.

 

[SlowwHand]

I'll say this, for ON I hear a lot of OWN rather than AHN.
You know what I mean?

(Exits mumbling, "yeah, like a bunch of dadgum furrners are gonna understand WTH that's sposed to mean" )

 

[starlifter]

1 & 2 are pronounced the same. 3,4,5 are prounounced the same.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

I pronounce them all the same, or at least it sounds that way to me.
Flatlander stole my bloody line on having no accent, so I'll have to just say that I speak the Queens English perfectly, with my Central Australian accent tempered by a hint of public school English, and a faint trace of an Ulster lilt.
And I swear in Swedish and Russian, outside of general speech (ie, when I am swearing at stubbing my toe, rather than asking someone to mind their ****ing manners and pass the ****ing salt. In conversation, when appropriate, I swear like trooper. But not at tea with the Pope )