[shevy-java]

Goose language? Or yankee doodels?

I was taught British English. I think America English is in many ways simpler, but my brain is wired to british spelling as well as pronounciation for the most part. Now it depends who has good spoken british english. One of my all-time favourites is Rowan Atkinson, but his english is kind of more theater-trained really; if you compare it to the Monty Python guys for instance. War criminal Tony Blair also has a good spoken english - not that I like the guy or find anything useful he said or did, but british english wins. Or we could go scottish - I don't quite like it as much as british english (Patrick Stewart also has a good intonation, but it's also more theater-trained than "real", per se), but one of the coolest thing ever is Gerard Butler teaching people scottish. What keeps scots apart from English is the language really. (Though, I also have to say, Sean Connery's dialect was nowhere near as funny or entertaining as Gerard's dialect. Guess even in Scotland there are diffferences.)

Irish english sounds more melodic - no wonder they kept on winning Eurovision. Paul David Hewson's voice in his prime is a great example.

I've also found African American english very interesting. One thing that keeps on tripping me up is "asking" versus "axsking". To me only the british pronounciation works, but I hear sooooo many axxing examples on youtube that I concluded that this must be widespread in the USA. I always have to think of an axe when I hear it though.

[walthamstow]

"Arksing" is also present in Caribbean English and came to London via there. This and other 'incorrect' pronounciations come from slavery-era creole dialects, I think.

I like people who speak a more modern English from my part of London. Check out TV personality Big Narstie or football pundit Clinton Morrison. You'll love 'em.

[stasomatic]

One on my favorite podcasters is Mike Hurley (London) from Relay.fm. He is a very eloquent gent, at least compared to me.

He says “whivf” instead of ”with” “teevf” instead of “teeth”, things like that, and some other idiosyncrasies that I can’t exactly remember but it was like adding to or replacing the last letter of the word with an “r”.

Is that a London thing or a person thing?

[gbacon]

A fun follow is Scots Word of the Day by Len Pennie.

https://youtube.com/@misspunnypennie

[gtr]

Patrick Stewart is from Yorkshire not Scotland, by the way.

[throw0101a]

> Patrick Stewart is from Yorkshire not Scotland, by the way.

I thought the House of Picard was from France…

[bigfishrunning]

Acting!

[DeathArrow]

>Now it depends who has good spoken british english.

My favorites are David Attenborough and BBC in general.

[zabzonk]

The BBC actually has an official "Pronunciation Unit", which tells people like newsreaders the "proper" way to pronounce words and placenames. Unfortunately, particularly in the latter case they often get it wrong. For example, my late Dad was born in a small West Yorkshire town called Sowerby Bridge, which the unit insists should be said Sourbee Bridge. Everyone, without exception, who lives there knows it is Sorebee Bridge. Writing in to the BBC complaining about this and many other similar errors is a popular hobby.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Pronunciation_Unit

[bitwize]

Local pronunciations of place names are often different from what's expected, and whether intended to be such or not, are often used as shibboleths to distinguish locals from outsiders. The examples of Couch Street (/ˈkutʃ/) in Portland, Oregon and Tchoupitoulas Street (/ˌtʃɑp.ə.ˈtuː.ləs/) in New Orleans, Louisiana come to mind in American place names.

[devilbunny]

Tchoup is just unpronounceable to most outsiders; the shibboleths are the streets that are pronounced very differently from what it would be anywhere else. Like Calliope (rhymes with TALLY-hope) or Burgundy (emphasis on second syllable).

[bitwize]

Or Chartres ("Charters") or Melpomene (/ˈmɛl.pə.ˌmiːn/), I get it. My wife has corrected me on quite possibly each and every one of the streets with a locally specific pronunciation.

Ooh, thought of another good place name like that: Quincy (/ˈkwɪn.zi/), Massachusetts! Massachusetts has a fair number of those, owing to its English settlement heritage.

[jjgreen]

Fartown? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fartown%2C_Huddersfield

[bitwize]

I wasn't referring to place names that sound like dirty words (as Couch St. sounds like "Cooch"); an uncountable number of Gropecunt Lanes in England would certainly qualify. I was rather referring to place names with counterintuitive pronunciations locals are expected to know, so that outsiders are immediately clocked by pronouncing it wrong. Couch St. definitely qualifies in both categories though.

[zabzonk]

In this LLM age, I guess that would be Gas Town :-(

https://steve-yegge.medium.com/welcome-to-gas-town-4f25ee16d...

[bigfishrunning]

Lancaster PA (LANG-KISS-TER) checking in

[bityard]

Oh, we have a TON of placenames in Michigan that are pronounced much differently than they are spelled. A lot of these are just Native American and French names/words that most people don't know how to pronounce anyway, but a few are just special for no apparent reason.

Examples:

Orion = "or-ee-un", Ionia = "eye-ON-nee-ah", Charlotte = "shar-lot", Milan = "MILE-an", Saline = "suh-LEEN"