David Crystal (reprinted from The English Language (1988), Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 57–61)
In this extract, the linguist, writer and broadcaster David Crystal discusses some of the most frequent pronunciation complaints heard from BBC listeners. He points out that what is often regarded as ‘sloppy’ speech is in fact characteristic of everyday usage for most speakers. Crystal also provides a list of words which have alternative pronunciations in British English.
[G]enerally actors try to pronounce words clearly, paying special attention to their endings, and without rushing weak syllables. In this way, the words can be heard more clearly at the back of the theatre. But their speech is much slower than normal conversation as a result. In three renditions of Hamlet’s ‘To be, or not to be’ speech by different actors, the speeds ranged from 130 to 190 spm [syllables per minute] – on average, half the speed of normal conversation.
The same point applies to other professional voice users, such as news broadcasters, radio announcers, priests, judges, and politicians. These people all have to speak in abnormal conditions – from a pulpit, in front of a crowd, into a microphone. In most cases, the listeners cannot see the speaker’s face clearly enough (or see it at all, in the case of radio) to enable them to get clues from the movement of the lips, or from the facial expression, as to what is being said. To be sure that their speech stands the best chance of being understood by all, then, professional speakers know that they must speak relatively slowly and distinctly. If they do not, they risk criticism of being unintelligible, or of being too informal, casual, or ‘sloppy’.
Enter the radio listeners, for the most common of all complaints to the BBC concerns the topic of pronunciation. And sloppy speech is the charge most often cited. The irony, of course, is that in almost every case the words called sloppy are in fact perfectly normal pronunciations in everyday speech, and everyone uses them. They include such forms as Feb’ry for February, lib’ry for library, Antar’tic for Antarctic, as’matic for asthmatic, twel’ths for twelfths, patien’s for patients, reco’nize for recognize, and so on. It’s very difficult in fact to say some of these words in their ‘full’ form – try pronouncing the second t in patients, for example. But many listeners, it seems, expect such precise articulation over the air, and are ready to demand it in writing, to the tune of thousands of letters each year.
Most listeners give just one reason for their complaint: a letter is there in the spelling, and so it should be pronounced. This is another example of the widespread belief that speech is a poor relation of writing. We always need to remind ourselves that speech came first, in the history of our species, and that we all learn to speak before we learn to write. To be worried about our pronunciation because it does not match the spelling is a strange reversal of priorities. We also need to remember that pronunciation patterns have changed radically since the days when the spelling system was laid down. English spelling hasn’t been a good guide to pronunciation for hundreds of years.
But despite all this, many people do act very angry when sounds are left out that they think ought to be there, or sounds are put in which they think ought not to be. Probably the most famous case of this last point is the use of an ‘intrusive r’ by speakers of Received Pronunciation: the insertion of an /r/ between vowels, when there is no r in the spelling. The most well-known instance, because of its frequency in the news, is law and order – widely known as ‘Laura Norder’.
One listener sent in a collection of over 100 intrusive rs which he had heard in one day’s listening. He included examples like Shah (r) of Persia, draw(r)ing, and awe(r)-inspiring. These are the noticeable ones, because the /r/ stands out clearly after the ah/aw vowels, which are said with the mouth quite widely open. It’s much more difficult to hear this kind of /r/ when it occurs after the less sonorous /ə/ vowel – the vowel that we use at the end of words like sofa or Persia. Unless Received Pronunciation speakers are taking extreme care, and speaking very self-consciously, they automatically put an /r/ into such phrases as Africa(r) and Asia, an area(r) of disagreement, and drama(r) and music. I have a tape recording of a critic vociferously condemning the intrusive r in law and order, in the course of which he said ‘the idea of an intrusive r is obnoxious’, putting in an /r/ at the end of idea!
Where does the intrusive r come from? It’s the result of these speakers unconsciously extending a pattern already present in their accent, as found in the linking r sequence described above. It is important to notice that, although there are thousands of English words which end in the letter r, only four kinds of vowel are involved: /ɔ/ as in four, /ɑː/ as in car, /ɜː/ as in fur, and /ə/ as in mother. What has happened is that, over the years, the linking /r/ has been extended to all words ending in one of these four vowels, when they’re followed by another vowel. The effect is most noticeable in words ending in /ɔ/, as in law and order, because there are in fact not very many such words in the language, so the usage tends to stand out.
Of course, explaining why a pronunciation has developed doesn’t explain why some people have come to hate it. It’s the same with other areas of usage. Why do some people hate hopefully? The reason is likely to be something to do with the way one social group, at some time in the past, adopted a usage in order to keep themselves apart from another social group which did not. In particular, an accent comes to be used like a badge, showing a person’s social identity. At any one time, there are several pronunciation patterns which are ‘loaded’ in this way. Current examples include ‘dropping the h’ (‘ospital for hospital) and ‘dropping the g’ (walkin’ for walking). These days such forms are considered to be uneducated – though a century ago, they were often to be found in cultured speech (as in the upper-class use of huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’).
All of this presents radio managers with a problem, of course. Although only a minority of listeners are antagonized by such matters, none the less they are antagonized – and this is not what radio broadcasting is meant to be about. Announcers and presenters who are sensitive to these issues therefore often go out of their way to avoid using a pronunciation which they know will upset people. They may go through their scripts and underline problem cases. Far more than the intrusive r is involved, of course. The problems include changes in stress (e.g. dispute vs dispute) and the pronunciation of individual words (e.g. saying recognize with or without the g). A selection of issues is [given below]. Foreign words pose special problems, as do the names of people and places. A Pronunciation Unit has long been established at the BBC to help answer queries about such matters. During the 1986 World Cup matches, the Unit had to issue guidelines to its commentators about the players, referees, linesmen, managers, and others involved – it took twenty-seven pages.
The following list includes many of the words which have alternative pronunciations in current English. The asterisk indicates the pronunciation recommended in the 1981 BBC guide compiled by Robert Burchfield.
adversary |
stress on *1st or 2nd syllable |
apartheid |
vowel in 3rd syllable as in height or *hate |
apparatus |
vowel in 3rd syllable as in car or *fate |
applicable |
stress on *1st or 2nd syllable |
ate |
vowel as in *set or late |
centenary |
vowel in 2nd syllable as in ten or *teen |
centrifugal |
stress on *2nd or 3rd syllable |
comparable |
stress on *1st or 2nd syllable |
contribute |
stress on 1st or *2nd syllable |
controversy |
stress on *1st or 2nd syllable |
deity |
vowel in 1st syllable as in say or *see |
derisive |
s in 2nd syllable as in *rice or rise |
dilemma |
vowel in 1st syllable as in *did or die |
diphtheria |
ph as */f/ or /p/ |
dispute |
stress on 1st or *2nd syllable |
economic |
vowel in 1st syllable as in met or me (both accepted) |
envelope |
vowel in 1st syllable as in *den or don |
furore |
said as *3 syllables or 2 |
homosexual |
vowel in 1st syllable as in *hot or home |
inherent |
vowel in 2nd syllable as in *see or set |
kilometer |
stress on *1st or 2nd syllable |
longitude |
ng as in *range or long |
medicine |
said as *2 syllables or 3 |
migraine |
vowel in 1st syllable as in *me or my |
pejorative |
stress on 1st or *2nd syllable |
plastic |
vowel in 1st syllable as in *cat or car |
primarily |
stress on *1st or 2nd syllable |
privacy |
vowel in 1st syllable as in *sit or sigh |
sheikh |
vowel as in see or *say |
Soviet |
vowel in 1st syllable as in *so or cot |
status |
vowel in 1st syllable as in sat or *state |
subsidence |
vowel in 2nd syllable as in Sid or *side |
trait |
final t *silent or sounded |
The problem becomes particularly acute if a radio channel decides to adopt a policy of friendliness or informality in response to listener demand. To make speech come across in a normally informal way, it is necessary to speed it up, and to introduce assimilations and elisions. If these are not introduced, either because they lessen the clarity of what is said or because they attract listener criticism, the speech will inevitably sound formal, clipped, and controlled. But listeners cannot have it both ways. If they want their announcers to sound friendly, they must expect a chatty style, with all the consequences that has for pronunciation.
As long as society contains divisions, there will always be differences in pronunciation, and, as a consequence, arguments about which form is best and which accent is most acceptable. The arguments can be healthy and informative, or nasty and intolerant. They are usually the latter. BBC announcers with accents other than Received Pronunciation regularly receive hate mail. And when I present English Now on Radio 4, my own accent – a mixture of Wales, Liverpool, and southern England – is often criticized. The letter-writers usually ask for the removal, forthwith, of the offending parties.
Getting the sack because of your speech isn’t unknown. I know of two cases – one in an estate agent’s, the other in a hairdresser’s – where assistants have had to leave because their accents were felt to be inappropriate. And in 1970 there was a much-publicized case of a blacksmith who committed suicide because he could not cope with the ridicule levelled at his accent when he moved from Yorkshire to the South of England. Remembering such stories, a tiny plea for tolerance would seem a reasonable way to end this section.