xkcd #2942: Fluid Speech

https://xkcd.com/2942

explainxkcd.com for #2942

Alt text:

Thank you to linguist Gretchen McCulloch for teaching me about phonetic assimilation, and for teaching me that if you stand around in public reading texts from a linguist and murmuring example phrases to yourself, people will eventually ask if you’re okay.

  • ZagorathEnglish
    7•6 months ago

    Like the other reply said, it’s all over the place in Australia. You can easily tell a tourist—especially an American tourist—because they’ll say “can-bair-a” instead of “can-bruh”.

    It’s not unusual in the UK, too. Worcester is Wost-er, Magdalen(e) is mawd-lin, and Leicester is lester.

    • @[email protected]English
      5•6 months ago

      OMG, that makes it so much worse. If someone tells you about a specific place, and you want to look it up later, you have absolutely zero chance of ever spelling it correctly. Good luck typing lester or woster in Wikipedia or Maps.

      • ZagorathEnglish
        6•6 months ago

        As it happens, that worked just fine:

        Worcester is famous even outside the UK because of Worcestershire sauce (pronounced “woster-shuh” sauce), the condiment named after the region. And because the name is on the bottle, it’s easy for people to remember.