I've now noticed that Agatha Christie also had some strange ideas about how Americans talk. In her The Big Four She has a highly successful and otherwise well-spoken American businessman ... and put them where they should be round the table. I

I was watching an old Doris Day - Rock Hudson film last night. Doris clearly said "lye-lock" for "lilac", but I suppose she was German. The *Cambridge Dictionary of American English.* shows that to be one of the pronunciations

I was watching an old Doris Day - Rock Hudson film last night. Doris clearly said "lye-lock" for "lilac", but I suppose she was German. The *Cambridge Dictionary of American English.* shows that to be one of the pronunciations

Mxsmanic wrote on 20 Apr 2004: Yes. The contraction is spoken with a very reduced vowel. They are pronounced the same way in American English. I speak American English, maniac, and I don't agree with your judgment here. "should of"

I can say this much: I would feel deeply insulted if anyone thought I spoke like Steve Irwin. The most distinctive feature I've noticed in Steve Irwin's speech (compared to other Australians I've known and heard) is that his /a/ sound

Larry G infrared: I was watching "the Croc Hunter" the other day and ... care to tackle an IPA, or other, representationof that one? I see you're not getting any responses from Australians in this thread. The problem is that our own

As MWCD11 puts it, in the usage note under the ... pronunciation of kilometer does not parallel that ofother metric compounds." It's difficult to see exactly what they mean by that. Sure, they say that the 2nd syllable stress has a ... I

representation learnt though guide I your Note to Janet: I'm not American - I'm from northern England (Sheffield). Dear Jonathan, Sorry about that. I suppose it's a mistake to suppose that everyone's American. Janet Australia,

the of helps, This is true, but it complicates matters. For example (here I'm using ASCII IPA to represent IPA), the Collins dictionaries, Cambridge dictionaries, and the OED all use (@U) to represent the British (Received Pronunciation)

vowel 'ay' in 'bank', 'language', etc. and you may well ... 'ay' is the long form of 'e'. Hope thishelps, Janet We have here a confusion between two different definitions of "longvowels." I and