That's not true, but not for the reasons others have ... letters didn't all sound alike, as you said they would. BTW, I wwasn't talking about silent letters. When I try to say the alphabet without moving my lips or tongue, there are no

As someone living in Northern Ireland, the most accurate comment ... over the centuries by migrants from England, Scotland, and Wales. However, there are identifiable features which are common in speech across Northern Ireland. Those of us with

They told me in my pronunciation there is no difference between 'shouder' and 'shoulder'. I have just been pronouncing the two words to try to understand what the problem might be. What I observe is that the tongue doesn't move

For that dialect, yes. Take me, for example. In my idiolect "piano" and "chianti" have two syllables. I have gathered that for the vast majority of English speakers these are three-syllable words that such speakers are

} At the AUE site, there's a page headed "Pronunciation of } newsgroup contributors' names". The URL is } http://www.alt-usage-english.org/audio gallery/index.html } } When you click on "WAV" or "MP3" by my

I think all of your cot/caught vowels sound like normative CINC AmE "aw". Suddenly you're throwing around this word "normative", which means about the same as "prescriptive". No one can be rightfully prescribing

A certain AUE contributor has deluded himself into thinking there's a substantial difference between my vowels in "call" and "Bob" in that remark. In general I agree; You agree that "a certain AUE contributor has

At the AUE site, there's a page headed "Pronunciation of newsgroup contributors' names". The URL is http://www.alt-usage-english.org/audio gallery/index.html When you click on "WAV" or "MP3" by my name, you

Anachronism, pronunciationwise. For obvious reasons, I've never heard an ancient Roman speaking Latin. Ican only imagine how the Latin should sound, i.e. ... sounds different from French - Latin, or American-Latin, or Russian-Latin. The same

It's not a matter of "how some British newspapers think 'macho'should be pronounced," but how the British actually pronounce it. (snip dictionary links) I think you are giving too much credit to we (us) Britishers. Either