were

Hi,

As far as I know _ere_ in “were” is pronounced in three ways:
1. as a long monophthong (like in HER)
2. as a diphtong (like in HAIR)
3. as a short monophthong

#3 is not a problem – in a weak position.
Could you please explain the difference in the usage of #1 and #2?

Thanks.

Unless you are talking about various dialectal pronunciations, then number 2 would normally be the pronunciation of "where", not "were". I am not claiming there is no dialect that would pronounce "were" as "where", though.

In some (many?) dialects, the "wh" in "where" has an "h" sound to it, so that "were" and "whirr", and "wear" and "where" do not sound the same.

That being said, around here, I don't usually hear "were" pronounced as "wear".

D. Jones shows #2 as a less frequent pronunciation.

So, only #1 everywhere?

I only pronounce "were" as "wear" in "Werewolf".

Thank you.

Frankly speaking, I’m a bit upset and surprised at the slack feedback. Regular Antimooners have always snatched at phonetics subjects.

I myself have never heard of "were" being pronounced with a diphthong in any English dialects that I know of... However, I am not that familiar with English English, Scottish English, Irish English dialects, so it could have such a pronunciation in some given English dialect outside North America...

Thanks, Travis.

In some English English dialects, there's a merger of SQUARE and NURSE so that "were" would rhyme with "wear" and "where". However it's not a diphthong, it's [E:] or [3:] or perhaps somewhere between the two. I'm not aware of any dialects where "were" would rhyme with the words without such a merger occurring.

For a word that does vary in pronunciation between rhyming with "fare" and rhyming with "her" is "err". I pronounce it [E_rr\] which is homophonous with "air".