Here in Australia everyone says it as in 'mirage', but with a bit more of a drawl, something more like 'barrage'. Class pwned.

Depends what school you went to though sometimes I think. I say 'graph' as in 'laugh', not as in Stephie Graf.

I know people from South Australia that say 'Lego' as 'Lay-go'. That tilts the hell out of me.

Laugh
Graph
Steffi Graf

All sound the same to me.

It's funny in this thread when people say things like "when I say X it rhymes with Y" forgetting of course that people may well pronounce Y differently as well.

Graph, Laugh and Steffi Graff all sound the same to me as well. After a bit of research on Wikipedia I see that I pronounce it with a broad A whereas lots of other places (such as the north of England, West country and most of America) use a short A.

Yeah I just realised this after the comment above

To confirm, what I meant is that "laugh" is like "larf", not "laff".

Is this also the "catch-all" thread for regional dialect observations?

I recently heard someone say "might could" in a sentence. I have no idea what in the hell that is supposed to mean. At best it's redundant, and at worst is makes no sense at all. This was in Mississippi, though the speaker may have been from Louisiana.

Another thing I heard was "pieces parts." Another bizarre redundant idiom.

At a shop the cashier asked me "You want a sack?" Now, I was able to decipher this pretty quickly, but I have never heard the word "sack" used in that context, as "bag" is what people say everywhere else I've gone.

@garage pronunciations: "grodge" is the only thing i ever hear, and either people are adding the "a" in this thread for some other reason, or you're all from regions that I've never been to.

i imagine they are adding the "a" in because it exists in the word "garage"

Given the nature of this thread, I have no idea what you're getting at.

I say might could/might should, lol. I went to school in Virginia, and might could is just a southern thing. Tennessee, Western Virginia (not like Richmond, but there's plenty of transplants both in college and living in the area), and places further south. I started saying it with a funny accent whenever it would have been appropriate, just in a mocking way, and now I say it inadvertently. FML.

One way or another, garage has two syllables imo.

In regular speech or in performance?

That's exactly how it's pronounced in Australia.

I think that most would have to practice for a very long time before they were even capable of rolling an R.

This reminds me of how annoying it is watching the news in California when a reporter speaks perfect English for an entire piece, and then converts to an unintelligible accent to say their name.

I understand that's how it's supposed to sound, but they just made it impossible for me to ever spell their name if I so happened to want to look them up.

Maybe they want to give a shout out to the population that can understand them at that point, and want it to be a sort of secret handshake. That's all I got.

In other accent-related news, I just met someone from Ethiopia who pronounces their own name "Elias" like "Alias."

In his song, "Day 'N Night."

First one in a while that has made me say wat.

It's not entirely uncommon for rappers to adopt in song alternate pronunciations to ensure consistency in the meter or rhyming scheme. Some are even known for it (cough...Kanye...cough).

English people usually don't say the 'r' which makes them including it when phonetically spelling things out quite hard for everyone else to understand.

Laugh
Graph
Steffi Graf

All rhyme.

This page shows the difference between the US and English pronounciations of "laugh". Although it is also pronounced as "laff" in some places in England

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dict...ritish/laugh_1

it's generally just (upper class?) southerners who say stuff like 'baaaaaarth' (bath), larrrrrrrrf (laugh), starrrrrrrrrrf (staff), etc. long a as in at the dentist or in 'aardvark'.

everyone in the north (i guess excluding the extremely posh) is using a short a as in 'bat'. fwiw using 'steffi graf' as an example is pretty dumb, given the number of people who knowingly or unknowingly pronounce it wrong.

Maybe it's a southern thing but it's definitely not upper class. More info on it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap-ba...rap-bath_split

ya just all southerners then i guess. i wasn't really sure as i try not to venture down there too often.

wordd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L43YeX3HIfE

oh god you know which one i hate, which i was just reminded of? pronouncing "horrible" as whore-ible

Am I reading your attempt at phonetic pronunciation wrong? That seems like the only way to say horrible.

no, i made it pretty clear i thought. you probably just pronounce it in a way that i loathe.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/horrible

i say it closest to the way it sounds if you click that little speaker next to the word

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34...nymore-663393/