I'm SE Oklahoma. I mean not me, but I sound like that.

Oh, I sound like a lot of them. Okay then.

Dayton says "cot" like the bed thing, imo.

speaking of pronunciations, my parents both have pretty thick Southern accents (they're from Georgia but I grew up mostly in Maryland), and I grew up pronouncing "gone" and "on" like "goan" and "own" respectively, probably among other hick-like speech things. Didn't realize till some kid made fun of me in like 5th grade that not everyone sounded like that.

wat is going on. Do you know what rhyme means?


Fahther
Baw (like saw) ther

How do ppl say these words?

I just said them to myself dozens of times and now I am confused

Fahther
Bahther

There is a reason no one likes the Boston accent.

I have done some extensive study on accents, dialects, etc. So here's the answer:

Speaking "correct" American English is called Standard American, although the vast, vast majority of Americans do not speak it and have some regional version of it (myself included, I still have a noticeable Chicago accent even after living in L.A. for 8 years).

The "ah" sound in father is different than in bother. It's a small difference.
Technically, there are 3 such similar sounds, the difference being by how open your mouth is when pronouncing it.

We had sentences and phrases that we used to practice distinguishing them. The phrase for these 3 sounds are
"all honest fathers"

The "all" had the most closed mouth sound and is how one pronounces words like "law", "fault", and "tall". This is like when you saw "aw" to a puppy. It's like you're trying to say "ah" but with an O shape to your lips.

The "honest" is the middle one, right in between "ah" and "aw" and is used in world like "hot" "cop" "con" and "rock". You have your mouth open like a blow up doll.

"father" is the most open one and is used in words like "calm" "pasta" and "aha!"

Of course, if you're from Chicago like me, all 3 of these sounds come out like "father".

So "bother" is the middle sound like "hot" and "honest".

Obviously, these sounds are so darn close that only the nittiest of nits would say that they don't rhyme.

If you want to practice the difference between all 3 in similar words, take a look at
"Caan" (like James Caan) "Con", and "Cawn" (like how they'd say cawnbread in N'awlins.

Our voice professor told us that really the only Americans that speak Standard American are New Englanders; not retahded Bahston types, but like rich snobby New Hampshire types.

So if you say "father" and "bother" the same, don't sweat it. They're almost identical, and the only people that might give you **** for it would be some nitty douche or a Nazi voice professor.

this thread is really ****ing with my head on how to speak

Different words rhyming in different accents is funny. Father and bother do not rhyme for me, or anyone in the Uk or Ireland afaik. Must be an American thing.

One thing I found as an Irish person is some strange words English people pronounce exactly the same. Like talk and torque. I pronounce these words completely differently. Most english people say them the same way. Caught and court is another example. When I first heard this I couldn't believe it, "You pronounce court like court of law the same as caught like caught red handed". Apparantly yes they do. Also people from southern England pronounce the word monk differently than spunk or funk. To me they rhyme.

Then again apparantly I say the words par and power indistinguishably. And the word mirror with only one syllable so we must all be weird.

yes! score one for daryn on this issue, finally!

also nobody here says "bahston". i say boston the same way i say bog, cog **** like that.

Meh, start pronouncing "R"s where they're in words and stop putting them where they're not and then we can see who's pronouncin' what

like where, sorry?

like how you guys say 'water' with a really soft d?

I'm stunned that caught and court could be homophones.

Not even close.

they're both the same 'or' sound. how do you guys pronounce them?

Like cawt and core-t. I am rubbish at spelling things phonetically. How does caught have an 'or' sound? When I hear english people speak they don't say the 'r' bit at all. Like instead of 'car' its 'cah'.

the difference between the 'cawt' and 'cort' of people who say they are pronouncing caught as 'cort' is extremely minor.

my caught and court are different but my talk and torque are definitely the same.

caught sounding like court is like saying warsh. Where's the invisible 'r'?

wait, are you guys saying you pronounce 'awe' and 'ore' differently? Port? Fought?

Nah they don't say the 'r'.

Yes, very differently.

Wazz, you're saying you pronounce FORT the same as FOUGHT? Most people here will headspin at that.

It's the law of conservation of consonants.

When letters get left out when pronouncing words such as "pahk" and "cah" the missing sound needs to find someplace to be. So you end up with words like "Cubur" and "pianur".

yep, these are only distinguishable by context. how do you guys pronounce them?

somewhat surprising to me that i haven't noticed these things before, given how much contact i have with americans and how many american films/tv series i've watched. i know from the town and departed that bostonians sound pretty beat up, tho.

wazz i assume you are pronouncing 'fought' correctly but 'fort' the same way.

everyone else is pronouncing fort as 'fore-t/four-t'.

rhymes with port, short, sport

laugh


here's a question for the rest of the english/irish people in this thread. what do you call that thin piece of metal that you put on the end of a hand pump. the bit that also goes inside the ball or whatever you are pumping. everyone i know calls it a 'friend'. is that just a crazy colloquialism or not?

Haha. No never heard that. We call it a needle.