Timeline for Why do Americans pronounce the word "shorter" differently from the British?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
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| Dec 6, 2021 at 14:17 | comment | added | TimR | @PatrickSzalapski: That SNL send-up of the TV series greatly distorts the pronunciation for comic purposes; the TV series only approximates the pronunciation of the region and gets an awful lot of it wrong. In that regional accent, the 'a' in the first syllable of "daughter" should be closer to the "oo" in "fool" (the lips protrude), but with the second syllable of the word, they're correct. | |
| Dec 4, 2021 at 1:11 | comment | added | Patrick Szalapski | @Tᴚoɯɐuo, like this? | |
| Dec 3, 2015 at 9:18 | comment | added | ClickRick | I don't produce an "r" after a vowel at all - the two "r"s in shorter are both entirely unvoiced; this is common in my part of England (the south-east). | |
| Oct 14, 2014 at 16:32 | history | edited | TimR | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 14, 2014 at 16:24 | comment | added | TimR | The vowel is certainly implicated. But if you live in an area where you do say the [r] in carter, or carton, then the way you say the [r] will have an impact on the way you say the [t] in "shorter". Remember the guy who tells them to kill the female raptor in Jurassic Park? Shoot huh!. He's not from my neck of the woods :-) We'd say "Shoot hrrrr!" here. | |
| Oct 14, 2014 at 16:20 | comment | added | Peter Shor | Definitely for sure. Maybe a little bit for shorter, but not at all for the word carter. And it's not the 'r' that's doing it, it's the vowel. | |
| Oct 14, 2014 at 16:19 | comment | added | TimR | This map shows regional differences with a more open vowel [a], so it isn't strictly germane to this question, but it does shed some light on the subject. tekstlab.uio.no/cambridge_survey/maps/71 | |
| Oct 14, 2014 at 16:18 | comment | added | TimR | Do you not protrude your lips when saying your surname? or the word "shorter"? | |
| Oct 14, 2014 at 16:06 | comment | added | Peter Shor | Drawers rhymes with doors here, too. And Shor isn't Shawr here, either. But I don't purse my lips for 'r's after vowels. | |
| Oct 14, 2014 at 15:51 | comment | added | TimR | Your surname here in SE PA would not sound anywhere close to "Shawr" (not an open vowel) but would be very close to "sure". We say "droor" when we see "drawer". drawers rhymes with doors here. | |
| Oct 14, 2014 at 15:46 | comment | added | TimR | They do in my neck of the woods, Peter (southeastern Pennsylvania). The phenomenon occurs (to a varying degree) throughout the US: the lips protrude when the first [r] in shorter is pronounced, whereas in England the word can be pronounced with a tight, slightly retracted lower jaw that causes the lips to be tenser. | |
| Oct 14, 2014 at 2:54 | comment | added | Peter Shor | Do any Americans pronounce the first "r" in shorter with lips nearly pursed? I certainly don't; it's almost impossible for me to pronounce that "r" that way. I think we only use the lips-pursing for "r"s that start syllables (or at least ones that come before vowels. | |
| Sep 13, 2014 at 21:08 | history | answered | TimR | CC BY-SA 3.0 |