I honestly have to admit that I despise that show...but I think that that was brilliant to use this clip to show Ori the emphasis of what is being discussed in this thread...Thumbs up!
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MontereyJack
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Thu 7 Mar, 2013 01:57 am
contrex, I think Americans have a different relation to their "h"s than the Brits, since we never, to my knowledge, had an American accent that dropped them, with social consequences, or compensated in reaction by overaccentuating them. They've always just been there as part of our linguistic landscape. My (American) dictionary's pronunciation of "why" is /hwi/ (it's a "long i", but I've forgotten how to get to the phonetic keyboard, the interesting part is that little aspiration of the w), whereas "Y" the letter is /wi/(also "long i"--I still haven't remembered in the interim how to get to phonetics).
contrex, I think Americans have a different relation to their "h"s than the Brits, since we never, to my knowledge, had an American accent that dropped them, with social consequences, or compensated in reaction by overaccentuating them.
I'm not sure what you're going on about here... the h that gets dropped by Cockneys is a different one. And which "Brits" did you mean exactly?
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ehBeth
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Thu 7 Mar, 2013 11:44 am
@contrex,
contrex wrote:
These days it is is very rare to hear anyone in Britain (except maybe the aristocracy) say the wh in the word 'why'. We just say 'wy' if I can put it that way. People who take account of the h in their pronunciation are likely to be seen as affected.
Who sees people in Britain as being affected if they say the wh in the word 'why'?
These days it is is very rare to hear anyone in Britain (except maybe the aristocracy) say the wh in the word 'why'. We just say 'wy' if I can put it that way. People who take account of the h in their pronunciation are likely to be seen as affected.
Who sees people in Britain as being affected if they say the wh in the word 'why'?
Well, me for a start. Seriously, these things are hard to explain in writing, as we have already seen, but basically, Northern and Midlands accents never really had it, nor Cockney or its modern relative, Estuary, and if a Southern English RP speaker started saying "hhhwere are my shoes?" or "hhhwy do you speak to me so cruelly?" people would fall about laughing and think they were pretending to be a BBC announcer c. 1935, or channelling Rudyard Kipling. That sort of speech is seen as comedic.
Of course I am! I am bemused that you felt the need to ask. Of course it is hard to tell who or what a person is on the web. I suppose you could have clicked on my profile and seen that I live in "España", and therefore wondered whether I am Spanish. I was born in Lambeth, south London, and lived there as a child, and later in Leicestershire, and then in Bristol. I have a home there but I am based in Spain at the moment.
Of course I am! I am bemused that you felt the need to ask. Of course it is hard to tell who or what a person is on the web. I was born in Lambeth, south London,
If she'd seen you walking, she wouldn't need to ask.
If she'd seen you walking, she wouldn't need to ask.
It's not because I'm from Lambeth that I walk like that, darling.
When I was a civil servant in central London in 1970, our office was visited by a junior Government Minister called William Van Straubenzee. he had a little chat with everyone, including me. He was known by his Tory colleagues and the political media as "the Bishop" because of his plummy voice. "Where do you live?" he boomed. "Herne Hill, Minister" I replied. "Ah!", he said, "I live in Lambeth too!". Of course he lived in the part of the borough by the Thames, the posh part.
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Ceili
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Thu 7 Mar, 2013 08:40 pm
Contrex, did you watch the video that was posted?
We don't pronounce the w in why in western canada, why is y, but I know what Beth speaks of.
It's not hhwhy. It's more like the video with Stewie sans the fake british accent and the elongated emphasis on the wh.
Try this, shape your mouth like you're about to say why, make the first bit of sound slightly softer, a whisper of sound, a breath over your lips, very quickly, before the rest of the sound breaks into the yyyy sound.
I have no idea if will help or not. But unlike Stewie's over exaggeration, it's generally barely perceptible except in Canada, where it gets more pronounced the farther you go east.. It's very noticeable in Newfoundland.
I watched it, it is quite annoying, and that weird pronunciation of "whip" that the little person used, to the perplexity of the talking dog, is exactly what would be perceived as affected and/or funny in Britain these days.
That proves nothing Joe. It's an American film about a British classic. It tells you a lot about how Americans in the 1950s thought people spoke in Victorian Britain, and very little about Victorians pronouncing the h in wh.
This clip loads very quickly, at 8:32, a blond lady says Whhat. This is a Newfoundland accent. I can't find a clip of why, but you'll get the idea.
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MontereyJack
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Fri 8 Mar, 2013 10:28 pm
ossobuco says
Quote:
@contrex,
I've thought of you as a Brit based in France. Got to catch up
I've always thought of Contrex as a charmingly curmudgeonly professorial 'Enry 'Iggins, with his tweed jacket, fedora, and pipe.
Now, from people's pronouns in reference, do I gather I should all along have been thinking of her as a charmingly curmudgeonly professorial 'Enrietta 'Iggins, tweed skirt and all?
