Pronunciations you had to unlearn

[Zaarin]

Hmm, I've never heard prescient or nascent with any vowel but /ɛ/ and /ei/ respectively...

[Linguoboy]

Hmm, I've never heard prescient or nascent with any vowel but /ɛ/ and /ei/ respectively...

I think nascent with /æ/ was a PIHTU. According to Wiktionary, prescient with /i:/ is both RP and “dated”. It doesn’t sound flagrantly wrong to me, but neither can I recall ever having heard it.

[Estav]

I think nascent with /æ/ was a PIHTU.

What does "a PIHTU" mean? (Edit: Oh, I guess "pronunciation I had to unlearn"? The pronunciation of nascent with /æ/ is listed in a number of dictionaries, such as MW, Collins, AHD, so I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the "had" part of that.)

I just looked through Youglish results for "nascent", and while the /e/ pronunciation seems to be much more common (which agrees with what I remember hearing in real life), I found a clear example of /æ/ from Chris Hedges in the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XWve-Z ... .be&t=1637

[Xwtek]

I used to pronounce to, from, your, and, etc, always as [tu:], [fɹʷɔm], [yɔːɹʷ], [ɛnd] (I can't pronounce æ, so it's always raised). Turns out all of them actually has schwa most of the time. Not to mention that [fɹʷɔm] is actually British (except raised) and I actually want to emulate American English.

[jal]

Not to mention that [fɹʷɔm] is actually British (except raised) and I actually want to emulate American English.

Funny, Wiktionary says GenAm has STRUT, where I would've expected LOT (since BrE has LOT).


JAL

[Ryusenshi]

It's a re-stressed weak form: unstressed [fɹʷəm] -> stressed [fɹʷɜm] since STRUT and schwa are very close in many American accents. Ditto for was, of, because and possibly what. Hence casual spellings 'cuz or LOL WUT.

[Linguoboy]

It's a re-stressed weak form: unstressed [fɹʷəm] -> stressed [fɹʷɜm] since STRUT and schwa are very close in many American accents. Ditto for was, of, because and possibly what. Hence casual spellings 'cuz or LOL WUT.

I always found UK spellings like "'cos" and "wot" baffling because nobody around me growing up ever had a LOT vowel there. First time I heard these pronunciations IRL they struck me as overarticulated (e.g. Peter O'Toole's character in The Last Emperor saying [ʍɒtʰ] for every occurrence of what).

[Moose-tache]

Am I seriously the last person on Earth who doesn't pucker their Rs?

[Vijay]

Nope. I don't do that, either, AFAIK. (Or maybe we both do it without realizing).

[Zaarin]

Am I seriously the last person on Earth who doesn't pucker their Rs?

My R is bunched, so no puckering here.

[Pabappa]

It's a re-stressed weak form: unstressed [fɹʷəm] -> stressed [fɹʷɜm] since STRUT and schwa are very close in many American accents. Ditto for was, of, because and possibly what. Hence casual spellings 'cuz or LOL WUT.

Ive picked up the /kɔz/ in "because" in emphatic speech (/bi::::::kɔ::::::z/ ), but this may just be a spelling pronunciation. of the bunch, its the only one that has a cognate that has the /ɔ/ in its most common form.

and yes, my /r/ is rounded, except in clusters like /tr/ where the previous conconant apparently cnacels it out.

[Travis B.]

Am I seriously the last person on Earth who doesn't pucker their Rs?

My R is bunched, so no puckering here.

I only pucker my /r/s when they are word-initial or when they follow a rounded vowel. (My /r/s, BTW, are uvular approximants unless they follow a coronal, where they they are coarticulated postalveolar-uvular approximants.)

[jal]

So what is a puckered r? Google doesn't seem to wanna search on a letter...


JAL

[bbbosborne]

i'm guessing [ɹˤʷ]

[Zaarin]

Am I seriously the last person on Earth who doesn't pucker their Rs?

My R is bunched, so no puckering here.

I only pucker my /r/s when they are word-initial or when they follow a rounded vowel. (My /r/s, BTW, are uvular approximants unless they follow a coronal, where they they are coarticulated postalveolar-uvular approximants.)

i'm guessing [ɹˤʷ]

Ah, if that's what we're talking about, my R is also labialized word-initially, though it's still fairly compressed.

[Moose-tache]

I meant labialized. I used the term "puckered" because I didn't want to normalize this behavior.

[Zaarin]

I meant labialized. I used the term "puckered" because I didn't want to normalize this behavior.

I'm pretty certain you're centuries too late. Unless you're referring to the pronunciation of /r/ as [ʋ] in certain English English dialects--that's new.

[Travis B.]

I meant labialized. I used the term "puckered" because I didn't want to normalize this behavior.

I'm pretty certain you're centuries too late. Unless you're referring to the pronunciation of /r/ as [ʋ] in certain English English dialects--that's new.

Yeah, I was about to say that the prototypical /r/ has been labialized for centuries, ever since /r/ and /wr/ merged in Late Middle English. What is unusual is to have an /r/ - or at least an initial /r/ - in English that isn't labialized.

[Estav]

Apparently, it's standard to pronounce argot without /t/, which I hadn't realized. I've tended to pronounce it in my head as /ˈɑrgɑt/.

[Hominid]

It's a re-stressed weak form: unstressed [fɹʷəm] -> stressed [fɹʷɜm] since STRUT and schwa are very close in many American accents. Ditto for was, of, because and possibly what. Hence casual spellings 'cuz or LOL WUT.

I'm guessing the is also an example of this, although I'd pronounce it [ði] if I'm stressing it in a sentence ("You're Walter Mondale? The Walter Mondale?") whereas I'd pronounce it [ðʌ] if I'm talking about the word ("Russian doesn't have a word for the"). I've heard others pronounce it [ði] in all cases though.