American pronunciation of "new, tuesday, tube etc"

>><<In Southern England in particular it comes out something like "Tews-dee" except in Estuary London or other Estuarised areas where it's something like "Tews-die". >>

That -dy ending for -day words is found in a few parts of the US, too, but here I think it is most associated with southerners and rural types. Maybe Midwesterners do it, too, I don't know. But it strikes me as very old-fashioned.<<

I have not heard such in use around here myself at least, I must say...

I occasionally hear the -dee ending for -day words in my area (Portland, OR), although I rarely hear anybody younger than 60 using such pronunciation.

>Yes, the Wikipedia article explains it pretty well. For almost all American >English speakers, there is yod dropping after stressed alveolar >consonants, as in "new", "Tuesday", "tube".

I don't think it's very clear. There's this extra sound that is not part of the spelling, and Americans don't pronounce it, and Americans are described as "dropping" it? Huh? Do Americans also "drop" the "r" sound at the end of the word "America"?

It is said to be "dropped" because it used to be pronounced.

As for whether it's part of the spelling... would you say the vowel in "new" is not part of the spelling and is an extra sound as well, then ?

Another Guest,...

What do you mean by "the 'r' sound at the end of the word 'America'"? There is no "r" sound that I know of there.

Estel, that's just the point he was trying to make. There is indeed no R at the end of "America", but many non-rhotic British speakers add this bizarre R sound at the end (Ameriker).

It's called /kAld/ intrusive R

The letter R can be extremely intrusive - it often pops up where it doesn't belong, at least here in the UK it does. On the BBC I heard an Estuaryised London-speak man discussing a TV comedy program from the 1980s with one of the stars of the show - Prunella Scales. The show was called "After Henry" - meaning life for the widow of a man after he had died. Ths man on the radio kept calling it "Aahftah Renry" while Prunella was characteristically clear and precise in her nice English English RP enunciation. Londoners often drop the initial "H" which may well explain the above regarding this man. Climb up to the top of 'Ampstead 'Eath and you can have a fantastic view of the City of London.

In sloppy speech the "R " sound often appears in the middle when one word ends with a vowel sound and so does the following word. In Liverpool/Merseyside the letter "R" often replaces the letter "T", as in "I gorra go now" instead of "I've got to go now".

Take a wee lassie called Angela Atkins....there may well be one knocking about somewhere as both names are fairly commonplace in the UK. At one time a Tommy Atkins was an average random British male, much like the American John Doe. Around these parts we'd called her Aahngela Aahtkins, but from the way many people in the South speak she would be called Angela Ratkins I reckon....that intrusive "R" I was telling you about.

In Scotland here when we say The South we usually mean England as a whole - anywhere south of the Tweed or the Eden rivers (ie the Anglo/Scottish border) is The South. But in this instance I mean the South of England as opposed to the North of England which, lingustically, are worlds apart.

Anyway, returning to this post:

<<I don't think it's very clear. There's this extra sound that is not part of the spelling, and Americans don't pronounce it, and Americans are described as "dropping" it? Huh? Do Americans also "drop" the "r" sound at the end of the word "America"?>>

We talk about Americans "dropping" it because historically it was there, and the change was for Americans to stop pronouncing it rather than for the British to add it in. And the historical yod *is* seen in the spelling: yod-dropped words like "Tuesday, tune, new" tend to use <ew> or <u>, just as in words like "few, futile, acute, dispute" which retain the yod. Compare words like "noon", "two", "do", "too", which tend to use <oo> or <o>, and which have never had a yod.

If I say "Tews-day", what is that? How would you notate that in IPA and the other system? Thank-you.

By the way, the intrusive R is usually the one thing that gives away a Brit or Aussie who is doing an otherwise perfect American accent -- it seems to be so hard for them to put two vowel sounds right after each other! Which is amusing to us Americans, who do it all the time.

However, I wonder if it isn't sometimes the quality of their final A's that contributes to this tendency. Take the word "law", for example. Brits invariably say something sort of like a cross between "lor" and "lure", while I would say something more like "lah". But if I forced myself to make the true W sound at the end, it would purse and round my lips, and it would only be a slight motion from there, as I relaxed them again, to produce an R-sound.

<<Take the word "law", for example. Brits invariably say something sort of like a cross between "lor" and "lure", while I would say something more like "lah".>>

I can't stand the 'lah' pronunciation. Same with 'drah' instead of 'draw'. It is disgusting.

-I can't stand the 'lah' pronunciation. Same with 'drah' instead of 'draw'. It is disgusting.-

I can stand the low pronunciation. I pronounce law as [lA] and low as [lo].
So your law [lo] sounds like my low [lo]. Same thing with your [kol] (call)
which is my [kol] (Cole).

-I can't stand the 'lah' pronunciation. Same with 'drah' instead of 'draw'. It is disgusting.-

Rounded vowels are so disguisting, yuck.