The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[Kuchigakatai]

I pronounce it with LOT, like Richard. My understanding is that in most of North America (but not parts of the eastern US) most words with LOT before /r/ are merged with NORTH and FORCE, but that there are a few exceptions; I gather "sorry" is often one of these exceptions but that it is not for you. Those exceptions I suppose retain the LOT vowel, but I assume it's the same phoneme as START (as we're not talking about eastern New England here).

Not in most of North America. Canadian English generally retains /ɔ/ in the /ˈɔɹV/ environment. So Americans' sorry /ˈsɑɹi/, tomorrow /-ˈmɑɹoʊ/, borrow /ˈbɑɹoʊ/, horrible /ˈhɑɹɪbl/ have /ɔ/ here. There is a joke about Canadians' (and Brits') pronunciation of "I'm horribly sorry" [aɪm ˈhɔɹɪbli ˈsɔɹi] sounding like "I'm whore-ibly sore-y" to Americans.

And as Travis correctly points out, words with earlier /ˈo:ɹV/ tend to commonly have /ɔ/ in the western US, and as he says, /ˈoɹ/ among those few degenerates who still have the horse-hoarse distinction (*glances at linguoboy with near-closed eyes*), so in words like orange, Florida, oracle, authority, historical, while these same speakers have /ɑ/ in sorry and tomorrow. I think words with earlier /wɔɹ/ also tend to retain /ɔ/ in the west (warrant, quarrel) though? (as yet another of the many influences of /w/ on a following back vowel).

You could say the eastern US has a "sorry-orange" merger not found west of it, and that the US as a whole has a Larry-lorry (EDIT: sparring-sorry) merger, both changes being largely absent in Canada. It seems Travis B's dialect is a bit Canadian though, still having /ɔ/ in sorry.

[Travis B.]

Here war, warrant, quarrel, wart, etc. have /ɔ/, which is also typical of GA. About Larry and lorry though, GA has /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ (surprisingly, I would have expected /ɑ/, but this might be an effect of being a loan of rather than a cognate with EngE lorry) respectively.

[Kuchigakatai]

Oh damn, Larry has /ˈɛɹi/! The hell...
EDIT: Well, that goes with "narrow", I suppose.
EDIT2: Wait- it has /ɛ/ even among those who don't have the marry-merry-Mary merger?
EDIT3: Okay, how about calling it the sparring-sorry merger? This should be good.

[Travis B.]

Oh damn, Larry has /ˈɛɹi/! The hell...
EDIT: Well, that goes with "narrow", I suppose.
EDIT2: Wait- it has /ɛ/ even among those who don't have the marry-merry-Mary merger?
EDIT3: Okay, how about calling it the sparring-sorry merger? This should be good.

Larry I would presume has /æ/ for marry-merry-Mary-unmerged speakers.

[Pabappa]

Larry rhymes with marry, yes. I dont know of anyone who would distingish those two words.

regarding the sparring/sorry thing .... I think its just another sporadic shift ..... i grew up thinking that the "LOT" pronunciation of such words was uneducated, and so I used the "FORCE" vowel in all of them instead. But I on ly did this with words where I heard both forms. It didnt occur to me until I was an adult that some people used the FORCE vowel in words like "sorry".

[Linguoboy]

Larry I would presume has /æ/ for marry-merry-Mary-unmerged speakers.

Can confirm: for my Bronx-born and -raised stepmother, Larry rhymes with Barry and Carrie.

[Ryusenshi]

I've noticed that Scarlett Johansson and Robert Downey Jr both use /ɔː/ in sorry. I guess their native NY accent has /ɑː/ in horrible, orange etc, they switched to /ɔː/ instead to sound more GenAm, and ended up hypercorrecting.

So Americans' sorry /ˈsɑɹi/, tomorrow /-ˈmɑɹoʊ/, borrow /ˈbɑɹoʊ/, horrible /ˈhɑɹɪbl/ have /ɔ/ here.

I think most Americans have /ɔː/ in horrible. AFAIK, historical LOT before intervocalic /r/ only becomes /ɑː/ in a handful of words: sorry, tomorrow, borrow, sorrow. (Well, outside of the North-East.)

EDIT3: Okay, how about calling it the sparring-sorry merger? This should be good.

I usually use starry / sorry.

[Travis B.]

I think most Americans have /ɔː/ in horrible. AFAIK, historical LOT before intervocalic /r/ only becomes /ɑː/ in a handful of words: sorry, tomorrow, borrow, sorrow. (Well, outside of the North-East.)

Yes, most Americans have /ɔ/ in horrible, and it is only a handful of words that have /ɑ/ for LOT before /r/ in GA.

[Ryusenshi]

EDIT3: Okay, how about calling it the sparring-sorry merger? This should be good.

Even better: we could call it the sari / sorry merger, for a perfect minimal pair.

[Linguoboy]

So Americans' sorry /ˈsɑɹi/, tomorrow /-ˈmɑɹoʊ/, borrow /ˈbɑɹoʊ/, horrible /ˈhɑɹɪbl/ have /ɔ/ here.

I think most Americans have /ɔː/ in horrible. AFAIK, historical LOT before intervocalic /r/ only becomes /ɑː/ in a handful of words: sorry, tomorrow, borrow, sorrow. (Well, outside of the North-East.)

Just to confuse things: there's a regressive card-cord merger in the St Louis area. It was basically complete in my mother's generation: she and her siblings merge ardor and order, farmer and former, and (famously) farty and forty. It is less pronounced in my generation, but I still grew up saying horror, horrible, orange, and forest with /ah/ and not /oh/.

[Ryusenshi]

I knew about the card/cord merger, but not that it applied before intervocalic /r/.

[Travis B.]

Hundred, when between numbers as part of a larger number - and not how you would pronounce it carefully but how you would pronounce it quickly.

[bradrn]

Hundred, when between numbers as part of a larger number - and not how you would pronounce it carefully but how you would pronounce it quickly.

In isolation: [ˈhɐnɖ͡ʐɻʷəd]
At the end of a number: [ʔɜˈhɐnɖ͡ʐɻʷəd] a hundred, [ˌse̞və̆nˈhɐnɖ͡ʐɻʷəd] seven hundred
At the beginning of a number: [ˈhɐnɖ͡ʐɻʷəɾə̆nˌtˢwe̞ɾ̃ĩˈθɻʷiː] hundred and twenty three (not a normal formation for me)
In the middle of a number: [ʔɜˈhɐnɖ͡ʐɻ̍ʷɾn̩ˌtˢwe̞ɾ̃ĩθɻʷiːˈmɪɫĭjən fo̞ːˈhɐnɖ͡ʐɻ̍ʷɾn̩ˌfɪftˢisɪksˈθæ͡ʉzə̆nd ˌse̞vənˈhɐnɖ͡ʐɻ̍ʷɾn̩ˌæ͡itˢiˈnɑ͡in] a hundred and twenty three million, four hundred and fifty six thousand, seven hundred and eighty nine

So there doesn’t seem to be much difference between hundred in isolation and within a number, apart from the fact that a couple of consonants become syllabic.

[Ryusenshi]

IANANS, so I just use the pronunciation implied by the spelling in my target accent, [ˈhɐndɹəd]. Maybe the first vowel can be a schwa if I'm speaking quickly. There may be some affrication on the first /d/.

I've heard some Americans say something like [ˈhɜnɚd] (hunnerd).

[Richard W]

It seems that my maximal reduction of 'hundred' is disyllabic [nɹd]; the more usual reduction is [hənrɪd], and Iʹm not sure the first vowel is a schwa as opposed to [ɐ]. It’s nothing like as frequent as [ptɪkllɪ] for 'particularly'. (Some will say that I misheard syllabic [t] as containing [ɪ].)

[Travis B.]

In the dialect here, it is common to pronounce hundred and within a number as /ˈhʌnərən/ [ˈhʌ̃ːɾ̃ʁ̩ːʁɘ̃(ː)n] (note that and is used more in numbers than it supposedly is in GA here, e.g. one would say two hundred and thirty two dollars where GA allegedly has two hundred thirty two dollars); note that hundred in forms like one hundred is /ˈhʌndʒrəd/ [ ˈhʌ̃ːntʃɻ͡ʁɘːt], even though I did recently hear my mother render this as /ˈhʌnrəd/ [ˈhʌ̃ːnɻ͡ʁɘːt].

[Nortaneous]

sorry /sɑri/
horrible /hɑrɨbəl/
tomorrow /təmɑrə(w)/
borrow /bɑrəw/
sorrow /sɑrəw/

orange /orəndʒ/ or /ɑrəndʒ/

Florida /florɨdə/
warrant /worənt/ (also war, wart, etc.)
quarrel /kworəl/

quarter /kortər/ (up north I've heard /kwɑtər/)

hundred:
- in isolation: /hʌndrɨd/
- at the end of a number: /hʌnərd/
- followed by 'and': /hʌnərdən/ ~ /hʌnərtən/

[Kuchigakatai]

John Wells's Longman Pronunciation Dictionary presents a three-way distinction between:
- supposed [səˈpʰoʊst] ~ [ˈspoʊst], in the phrase "to be supposed to [do sth]"
- supposed [səˈpʰoʊzd], as the passive participle of "to suppose" (she has supposed that..., the man supposed to have the power)
- supposed [səˈpʰoʊzɪd] or [səˈpʰoʊzd], as an adjective (apparently as in "the supposèd evidence")

What do you guys think?

Does a similar distinction exist between adjectival allegèd [əˈlɛdʒɪd] and participial alleged [əˈlɛdʒd]? What about adjectival fixèd and participial fixed [fɪkst]. It seems very clear to me that it exists between learnèd (~educated) and the participle learned too at least, since the former is often printed with the grave accent.

Is the ending -ed-ly pronounced [ɪdli] in general? Some relevant words:
concernedly
unashamedly
unabashedly
depravedly
biasedly
avowedly
perplexedly
ingrainedly
alarmedly
compressedly
embarassedly
unreservedly
determinedly(?)
bewilderedly(?)
qualifiedly ([ˈfai.ɪd.li]? [ˈfaɪd.li]?)

[Travis B.]

John Wells's Longman Pronunciation Dictionary presents a three-way distinction between:
- supposed [səˈpʰoʊst], in the phrase "to be supposed to [do sth]"
- supposed [səˈpʰoʊzd], as the passive participle of "to suppose" (she has supposed that..., the man supposed to have the power)
- supposed [səˈpʰoʊzɪd] or [səˈpʰoʊzd], as an adjective (apparently as in "the supposèd evidence")

What do you guys think?

I have that distinction, even though I tend to reduce supposed to much further, i.e. [ˈsʲposʲːtʲə(ː)]~[ˈsʲposʲːə(ː)]~[ˈsʲposʲə(ː)], but [ˈsʲpoːsʲːtʲə(ː)]~[səˈpʰoːsʲːtʲə(ː)] in careful speech. For me the second is [səˈpʰoːsʲtʲ] and the third is [səˈpʰoːzɘːt].

Does a similar distinction exist between adjectival allegèd [əˈlɛdʒɪd] and participial alleged [əˈlɛdʒd]? What about adjectival fixèd and participial fixed [fɪkst]. It seems very clear to me that it exists between learnèd (~educated) and the participle learned too at least, since the former is often printed with the grave accent.

I have a distinction between allegèd [əːˈʟ̞ɜːtʃɘːt] and alleged [əːˈʟ̞ɜːtʃt] and learnèd [ˈʟ̞ʁ̩̃ːɾ̃ɘːt] and learned [ʟ̞ʁ̩̃ːnt], but generally not between fixèd or fixed [fɘʔksʲtʲ].

Is the ending -ed-ly pronounced [ɪdli] in general? Some relevant words:
concernedly
unashamedly
unabashedly
depravedly
biasedly
avowedly
perplexedly
ingrainedly
alarmedly
compressedly
embarassedly
unreservedly
determinedly(?)
bewilderedly(?)
qualifiedly ([ˈfai.ɪd.li]? [ˈfaɪd.li]?)

Overall, I'm not consistent - some of these have /ɪdli/, some of these have /dli/, some of these I am not sure about because I hardly ever hear or say these words.

[bradrn]

John Wells's Longman Pronunciation Dictionary presents a three-way distinction between:
- supposed [səˈpʰoʊst], in the phrase "to be supposed to [do sth]"
- supposed [səˈpʰoʊzd], as the passive participle of "to suppose" (she has supposed that..., the man supposed to have the power)
- supposed [səˈpʰoʊzɪd] or [səˈpʰoʊzd], as an adjective (apparently as in "the supposèd evidence")

What do you guys think?

The first two are definitely distinguished for me. Not sure about the last one, since I don’t usually use ‘supposed’ as an adjective; if I did, I’d probably say it [səˈpʰoʊzd].

Does a similar distinction exist between adjectival allegèd [əˈlɛdʒɪd] and participial alleged [əˈlɛdʒd]?

I don’t think I have this, though again I don’t use the word ‘alleged’ too much.

What about adjectival fixèd and participial fixed [fɪkst].

Always [fɪkst] for me.

It seems very clear to me that it exists between learnèd (~educated) and the participle learned too at least, since the former is often printed with the grave accent.

I suppose so, though in general ‘learnèd’ isn’t particularly common outside formal contexts.

Is the ending -ed-ly pronounced [ɪdli] in general? Some relevant words:
concernedly
unashamedly
unabashedly
depravedly
biasedly
avowedly
perplexedly
ingrainedly
alarmedly
compressedly
embarassedly
unreservedly
determinedly(?)
bewilderedly(?)
qualifiedly ([ˈfai.ɪd.li]? [ˈfaɪd.li]?)

I have [ɪdli] in unashamedly, avowedly, perplexedly, unreservedly; [dli] in concernedly, depravedly, determinedly, bewilderedly, qualifiedly; not sure about the rest. (Oh, and I’m fairly sure that biasedly and compressedly aren’t words — in fact, most of the words you list are ones I’ve never seen used let alone pronounced, though those two I’m particularly uncertain about.)