Some people will even get a sort of neutral accent that has all of the unusual parts removed. The Western US accent was actually formed like that, because speakers from the North, Midlands, and South, all moved to the West, and their accents

Conchita, I would have said those were the only 'standard' pronunciations in BrE, yes. The vowel shown for 'golf' would be different in AmE (the a in father ), but that shown for 'gulf' would be the same. Marvin, I misspoke. "heard

I don't think there is a hard and fast rule here. However: If you have a two syllable word that ends with an 'a', it's typical that the vowel in the first is short. Like 'dada', 'feta', etc. This is not a rule so much as a pattern that should

The Antonym of Sin In order to arrive at a suitable antonym for the word “sin”, one must understand the word as it is correctly used in the English language. This explanation will address the meaning of sin and its antonym in an attempt to

Length isn't phonemic in English generally. If there were two words distinguished only by vowel length, it would turn out to be a side-effect of something else, such ... taught tot, caught cot, pawed pod, sought awed sot, sawed odd sod, hawed,

Hi Demicjusz (whom I call 'Demi' not because I thought you were female, but because the combination of vowels in your suffix are difficult to remember and copy down), No excuses, no analogies-- I just incorporate what sounds I seem to remember

}> }> I can half understand why we don't say Paree, but why shouldn't }> English speaking people be able to sort out the local pronunciations }> of proper nouns in English speaking countries? Why do all English }> people, it

The vowel /&/ seems to be politically incorrect. Notice how ... "Nevoda". Apparently, it is PC to change /&/ to /A/. "Nev/a/da" is the usual pronunciation in the Northeast. I'm not sure how far west it extends; but

Ten or so years ago, in conversation with a Brit ... read about the name years before and said /'pVm frEt/. I'm from rather closer than Cambridge to Pontefract, and I'd say /'pA.ntIfrakt/ - that's "PONT-i-fract" for

The vowel /&/ seems to be politically incorrect. Notice how the media gradually started pronouncing Iraq as "erock". And then there was Bush's "Nevoda". Apparently, it is PC to change /&/ to /A/.