What is the educated way of pronouncing vase?
Should "vase" rhyme with face, haze, bras, or paus
It either rhymes with face or with phase. It rarely rhymes with bras, that's more of a british form.
That's how any major dictionary says. I used Oxford's, but that's what merriam-webster says too:
\US oftenest ˈvās; Canada usually & US also ˈvāz; British usually, Canada also, & US sometimes ˈväz\
That's how any major dictionary says. I used Oxford's, but that's what merriam-webster says too:
\US oftenest ˈvās; Canada usually & US also ˈvāz; British usually, Canada also, & US sometimes ˈväz\
Oh and, I guess it has been further shortened in Southern American, but that must be strictly dialectal.
I rhyme it with face, Vahhhhz just strikes me as ridiculously affected, but to each their own.
In Britspeak:
Vase - as in the vessel containing a display of cut flowers - rhymes with "jars" - a long "a" with the "s" sounded like a "z" (zed to us).
Replace the "v" with a "b" or a "c" and it's a different kettle of fish altogether - it follows the usual pattern in English - "baiss"/"kaiss).
In the case of "vase" being pronounced as it is I suppose the reason is that the word originates from the French derivation from the Latin "vas", meaning a vessel similar to what we know as a common or garden "vase" - and that was, presumably, pronounced in a similar way to the British English way of saying this word.
So many of the seemingly strange and irregular way of pronouncing some English words in different ways even though the stem formations are the same is now lost in the mists of time.....the English Language had its origins in the modes of speech of the very different forces which have occupied these islands over the centuries, not to mention the contributions made to the language as a result of the British occupation of lands far away across the seven seas.
The death of the novelist Alan Sillitoe has been announced today 25/04/10 -a son of the city of Nottingham, like Robin Hood, he was born there 82 years ago and is well known for his books, among others, "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" and "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" - he specialised in the "angry young man" scenario and had an amazing insight into the mind and psyche of the working class male in England.
Both of those named books were transmitted to the cinema screen, and have been shown on TV over the years.
As I type this I am listening to a program on BBC Radio 4 called "Gardeners' Question Time" in which a panel of gardening experts respond to questions on the topic put to them by members of the audience and it comes from a different location in the UK each week. Today it came from the small town of Blandford in Dorset, in the South West of England.
The first questioner had a very pronounced standard American accent, so the program's chairman said to him: "You don't sound as if you have a local accent! You sound as if you come from somewhere in the west - very far west!" The man replied in a teasing manner: "Yes I do come from the west - West Dorset!" The audience burst out laughing, and then the man explained that he actually originated from Fort Worth, in Texas.
Cointrary to popular belief here in the UK Americans DO have a sense of humour! ;-)
Vase - as in the vessel containing a display of cut flowers - rhymes with "jars" - a long "a" with the "s" sounded like a "z" (zed to us).
Replace the "v" with a "b" or a "c" and it's a different kettle of fish altogether - it follows the usual pattern in English - "baiss"/"kaiss).
In the case of "vase" being pronounced as it is I suppose the reason is that the word originates from the French derivation from the Latin "vas", meaning a vessel similar to what we know as a common or garden "vase" - and that was, presumably, pronounced in a similar way to the British English way of saying this word.
So many of the seemingly strange and irregular way of pronouncing some English words in different ways even though the stem formations are the same is now lost in the mists of time.....the English Language had its origins in the modes of speech of the very different forces which have occupied these islands over the centuries, not to mention the contributions made to the language as a result of the British occupation of lands far away across the seven seas.
The death of the novelist Alan Sillitoe has been announced today 25/04/10 -a son of the city of Nottingham, like Robin Hood, he was born there 82 years ago and is well known for his books, among others, "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" and "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" - he specialised in the "angry young man" scenario and had an amazing insight into the mind and psyche of the working class male in England.
Both of those named books were transmitted to the cinema screen, and have been shown on TV over the years.
As I type this I am listening to a program on BBC Radio 4 called "Gardeners' Question Time" in which a panel of gardening experts respond to questions on the topic put to them by members of the audience and it comes from a different location in the UK each week. Today it came from the small town of Blandford in Dorset, in the South West of England.
The first questioner had a very pronounced standard American accent, so the program's chairman said to him: "You don't sound as if you have a local accent! You sound as if you come from somewhere in the west - very far west!" The man replied in a teasing manner: "Yes I do come from the west - West Dorset!" The audience burst out laughing, and then the man explained that he actually originated from Fort Worth, in Texas.
Cointrary to popular belief here in the UK Americans DO have a sense of humour! ;-)
You can hear the American man ask his question in this link, and hear his response on being told that he doesn't sound like he comes from Dorset....although he introduces himself as coming from the Dorset town of Wimborne, or Wimborne Minster to give it its correct name as it is home to a minster, which is a kind of cathedral church...I can vouch for Dorset being a spectacularly beautiful county full of spectacularly beautiful villages and towns...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00s0y02
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00s0y02