Re: Of accents & dialects

Mark J. Reed, On 30/10/2008 15:57:
> IME, rapid American "respiratory" drops a syllable, but not an 'r', so
> "respitory" is inaccurate.  More like "respritory" or "respertory".
> Laurie's accent is phenomenal.
That's my nonrhotic ears mishearing, then. /respr'tori/ -- that does make more sense.

    r e sp i r a t o ri
US  r e sp % r % t o ri
UK1 r e sp % r % t % ri
UK2 r % sp i r % t % ri

where '%' = zero or a very weak vowel. The change from UK1 to UK2 is a change that
occurs in many words, to avoid sequences of 3 % in a row.

--And.

> On 10/30/08, And Rosta <and.rosta@...> wrote:
>> Sally Caves told me that the only giveaway of Hugh Laurie's Englishness in
>> "House (MD)" was that he pronounced "respiratory" as "respiratory", as the
>> English do, rather than as "respitory" as the Americans do. (The English
>> pronunc is /'respIr@tri/ or /r@'spIr@tri/; I don't know which one Hugh
>> said.)