The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[Travis B.]

I don't pronounce "quarter" as a monosyllable. I do however pronounce "quarter" and "quart" without a /w/. "Quart" sounds the same as "court" for me.

I picked up /w/-less pronunciations of quarter and quart sometime while I was in college but have since lost them.

[Travis B.]

I've finally trained myself to realize [ɹ ɻ ɹʷ ɻʷ] without generating laterals instead.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I think my transcriptions make the dialect here seem weirder than it is because I very rarely encounter native NAE-speakers that have trouble understanding me, implying that speech similar to my own is more widely familiar than one may think. However, non-native English-speakers are another story, and when talking with them I often have to avoid more progressive or dialectal forms lest they not understand.

With that pronunciation of quarter specifically, there's quite a high probability I would hear it as core.

[Travis B.]

I think my transcriptions make the dialect here seem weirder than it is because I very rarely encounter native NAE-speakers that have trouble understanding me, implying that speech similar to my own is more widely familiar than one may think. However, non-native English-speakers are another story, and when talking with them I often have to avoid more progressive or dialectal forms lest they not understand.

With that pronunciation of quarter specifically, there's quite a high probability I would hear it as core.

To me the most salient difference between my usual pronunciation of quarter and core is the former has /kw/, which I would narrowly transcribe as [kʷʰw̥], while the latter has /k/, i.e. simply [kʰ].

[Space60]

How do you pronounce "nephew"? The word historically has /v/ for the "ph", however by spelling pronunciation lots of people have /f/. I pronounce it with /f/.

[Raphael]

So do I at the moment, but I'm open to being corrected if it should turn out that /v/ is more common.

[Travis B.]

So do I at the moment, but I'm open to being corrected if it should turn out that /v/ is more common.

I have /f/, and have never heard it with anything other than /f/; I was not even aware this was a spelling pronunciation until quite recently (implying it is an old spelling pronunciation).

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I also had no idea till now the [f]-form (which I have) was a reading pronunciation, and hadn't heard the one with [v] at all.

[anteallach]

I also had no idea till now the [f]-form (which I have) was a reading pronunciation, and hadn't heard the one with [v] at all.

I think I've occasionally heard the /v/ form from older RP speakers (it's probably the "U" pronunciation), but AFAICT the /f/ form has pretty much taken over everywhere. The spelling is weird, as <ph> normally suggests Greek origin but here was apparently meant to recall Latin nepos.

A common pronunciation here of quarter is [kʰwɔʁˤː] (note the short vowel and the long /r/ — *quar would be [kʰwɔ(ː)ʁˤ]), alongside the more careful [ˈkʰwɔʁˤɾʁ̩ˤ(ː)]. As for quartering, I have [ˈkʰwɔʁˤɾʁ̩ˤːʁˤɘ̃(ː)ŋ].

Sometimes, these phonetic transcriptions make it feel as if we were separated by some vast ocean of time.

Either way, I could probably (maybe) understand [kʰwɔʁˤː] in context, but I have difficulty articulating it, or an idiolectal equivalent, in a way that feels natural.

I can quite easily imagine a pronunciation along the lines [ˈkʰwɔɹɚ] in an American accent, arising from flapping the /t/ and then flap elision. That isn't so far from Travis's pronunciation, especially if the [ɹ] and [ɚ] are "bunched", though the pronunciation I'm imagining still feels like two syllables to me.

A local dialect pronunciation of quarter in some parts of northern England, BTW, is [ˈkʰwatə].

[Travis B.]

A common pronunciation here of quarter is [kʰwɔʁˤː] (note the short vowel and the long /r/ — *quar would be [kʰwɔ(ː)ʁˤ]), alongside the more careful [ˈkʰwɔʁˤɾʁ̩ˤ(ː)]. As for quartering, I have [ˈkʰwɔʁˤɾʁ̩ˤːʁˤɘ̃(ː)ŋ].

Sometimes, these phonetic transcriptions make it feel as if we were separated by some vast ocean of time.

Either way, I could probably (maybe) understand [kʰwɔʁˤː] in context, but I have difficulty articulating it, or an idiolectal equivalent, in a way that feels natural.

I can quite easily imagine a pronunciation along the lines [ˈkʰwɔɹɚ] in an American accent, arising from flapping the /t/ and then flap elision. That isn't so far from Travis's pronunciation, especially if the [ɹ] and [ɚ] are "bunched", though the pronunciation I'm imagining still feels like two syllables to me.

A local dialect pronunciation of quarter in some parts of northern England, BTW, is [ˈkʰwatə].

-/rər/ is not exactly stable in my dialect; I have the mirror-mere merger, where I reduce it to [ʁˤ], but only in the word mirror. The regular outcome is [ʁˤʁ̩ˤ], where [ʁ̩ˤ] is slightly more open than [ʁˤ] and is timed as having its own syllable. However, in this case I have an in-between realization of [ʁˤː] derived from -/rtər/ with /t/ flapping and then flap elision applied (note that underlyingly the /t/ is still there, which is why the vowel in the first syllable is short rather than long). Note that flap elision commonly results in reduction of the following syllable in my dialect, in particular -/ər/ and -/əl/ are very commonly joined with the preceding syllable.

[anteallach]

-/rər/ is not exactly stable in my dialect; I have the mirror-mere merger, where I reduce it to [ʁˤ], but only in the word mirror. The regular outcome is [ʁˤʁ̩ˤ], where [ʁ̩ˤ] is slightly more open than [ʁˤ] and is timed as having its own syllable. However, in this case I have an in-between realization of [ʁˤː] derived from -/rtər/ with /t/ flapping and then flap elision applied (note that underlyingly the /t/ is still there, which is why the vowel in the first syllable is short rather than long). Note that flap elision commonly results in reduction of the following syllable in my dialect, in particular -/ər/ and -/əl/ are very commonly joined with the preceding syllable.

So could butter be something like [bʌɹ^bunched]?

[Travis B.]

-/rər/ is not exactly stable in my dialect; I have the mirror-mere merger, where I reduce it to [ʁˤ], but only in the word mirror. The regular outcome is [ʁˤʁ̩ˤ], where [ʁ̩ˤ] is slightly more open than [ʁˤ] and is timed as having its own syllable. However, in this case I have an in-between realization of [ʁˤː] derived from -/rtər/ with /t/ flapping and then flap elision applied (note that underlyingly the /t/ is still there, which is why the vowel in the first syllable is short rather than long). Note that flap elision commonly results in reduction of the following syllable in my dialect, in particular -/ər/ and -/əl/ are very commonly joined with the preceding syllable.

So could butter be something like [bʌɹ^bunched]?

Butter is actualy [b̥ʌːʁˤ] because in this case the vowel from the following syllable adds one unit of length to the vowel before what had been the flap. Note that *budder would be [b̥ʌːːʁˤ], because the preceding vowel is already long. It seems that in the case of quarter, the /r/ before the elided flap prevents this lengthening.

* [b̥] here signifies that the vowel may be [p] pr [b].

About [ɹ^bunched], well... the thing is that the only case where my /r/ has any coronal articulation is after another coronal, where then it has postalveolar coarticulation. Beyond that, I've actually found pronouncing coronal approximant rhotics quite difficult, and have only recently trained myself to produce them, where then they still feel unnatural.

[anteallach]

About [ɹ^bunched], well... the thing is that the only case where my /r/ has any coronal articulation is after another coronal, where then it has postalveolar coarticulation. Beyond that, I've actually found pronouncing coronal approximant rhotics quite difficult, and have only recently trained myself to produce them, where then they still feel unnatural.

If I'd meant to imply a coronal then I'd just have written [ɹ].

[Space60]

How do you pronounce "buttocks"? Dictionaries list its pronunciation with a reduced vowel in the last syllable, but I pronounce the last syllable to rhyme with "socks".

[Travis B.]

How do you pronounce "buttocks"? Dictionaries list its pronunciation with a reduced vowel in the last syllable, but I pronounce the last syllable to rhyme with "socks".

[b̥əˈtʰaʔksʲ] or even (?!) [b̥əʔtˈtʰaʔksʲ], i.e. with LOT.

I should note I have no idea as to how this pronunciation came to be.

[foxcatdog]

I don't pronounce buttocks i simply use words like "ass", "butt", "bottom" or "rear-end".

[Rounin Ryuuji]

How do you pronounce "buttocks"? Dictionaries list its pronunciation with a reduced vowel in the last syllable, but I pronounce the last syllable to rhyme with "socks".

['bʌ.dəʔk̚s]
Stressed on the first syllable, second reduced. I rarely use this word, however.

[Space60]

I don't pronounce buttocks i simply use words like "ass", "butt", "bottom" or "rear-end".

Yes, I rarely use the word "buttocks" myself, but I were to say it, I would rhyme it with "rocks" .

[Kuchigakatai]

How do you guys refer to the left or right buttock specifically?

I guess the term "cheek" (and ass cheek) exists but it's very informal, probably vulgar. What would you say in a more formal way? Is that the one use you guys might have for "buttock"?

[Travis B.]

How do you guys refer to the left or right buttock specifically?

I guess the term "cheek" (and ass cheek) exists but it's very informal, probably vulgar. What would you say in a more formal way? Is that the one use you guys might have for "buttock"?

I use cheek myself.