The mysterious 'R'

[10ClarionSt]

What happened to pronunciation? On the BBC now, the presenters insert an 'R' where there isn't one e.g. Grarss, blarst, parst, marster, barth, glarss etc.

What's this all about? Is there no such thing as a bath any more? Or a glass door? Or a grass verge?

??????

[THECORBYLOON]

Wotuonabarrrrrt mate? Course ders a bleedin' r in "grarss" n "blarst" It's "barf" not "barth" You fick or WOT?

[bernardo]

I have heard people say "grarss, blarst, marster, barth, glarss" exactly the same number of times as I have been kicked to death by a hippopotamus.

[Azimov]

I suspect it's for the same reason our newscasters take great lengths to pronounce Ayatollah Khomeini correctly but fail to pronounce Loch Ness!

If it's domestic... who cares?

[THECORBYLOON]

Ah, the good old Lock Ness Monstuh

[heathfield]

It's been getting worse since the end of the Second World Wo-ah!

[Xollob]

I couldn't help noticing on a recent trip to the UK that many pubs no longer sell lager. It was always "larger" on the hand-written signs. But I suppose a pint of pıss by any other name...

[scotstone]

I had to stop my Yorkshire born children watching Playschool with Floella Benjamin when they started saying things like " grarss around the carstle" and "clarssrum". No-one locally would have understood them!!

[Mikeyd2]

I thought I'd seen it all until I spotted an ad in the local paper advertising a restaurant for FaRthers Day , I kid you not.

[maximo]

I've noticed a frequent mistake on here, I don't know if it's only in writing as I'm sure I wouldn't notice the difference if I heard it ...

Lots of people use "brought" instead of "bought" , as in "I brought coffee in Tesco's yesterday". I'm hardly in a position to blame anyone for their spelling as it's not even my first language, but - I don't know why - this particular one caught my eye and makes me cringe now every time I see it ! Do people do it when they speak too ?

[Joe Shmoe]

10Clarion St , It is a Southern thing. It is not as you say an R but a long A . For instance take the word bath. In the North it is pronounced Baff , whereas in the South it is pronounced barf. I hope that makes things clearer for you.:-)

[jacey]

And the letter H is pronounced Aitch, check your dictionaries please!!! It drives me mad when I have to spell out something over the phone and am asked if I mean HAITCH !!!!!! no I mean AITCH. Rant over, Oh that's better.

[Andy Boz]

Strange that it gets added to some words on the Beeb, but removed from 'secretary', to make it secertary quite frequently. Irarq is quite a frequent one also.

Unfortunately society is changing, and a lot of TV, particularly soaps seem to have Cockneyesque person in them, with their 'sumink' 'I fink' 'goin ou(t)'

This coupled with teachers that don't want to teach, and students who don't want to study, God help us in the future. My rant over

[willowman]

Joe Schmoe has just hit on another of my pet hates, don't know whether it was deliberate or not.

"TH" at the end of a word is pronounced "TH" as in "the", not "FF".

I also notice youngsters are writing "ov" where they should write "of", as in "Grumpy ov Souffend".

[Joe Shmoe]

Yes willowman I Know. I used the fff sound to to give the words a harsher sound to emphasise the regional difference.
and to try and make what I was saying easier to understand.

[Joe Shmoe]

By the way please excuse The two to's in above reply . My typing is not very good.:-)

[willowman]

Joe, I assumed you were spelling this way deliberately, but sadly so many youngsters now are using this sloppy way of speaking. It seems that they can't be bothered (or should that be bov-vered) to pronounce words properly.

Indeed my own partner has a habit of dropping the letter "t" at the end of words, as in "I wen' to Ken' last week".

I know that English is a fluid language and is constantly changing (I asked an earlier question about how far back in time I could go and still understand people) but unfortunately I went to a school which drilled into us that we should speak properly and use correct grammar, and old habits die hard. "Grumpy old men" syndrome strikes again.

As an aside, I get told off at home because we watch Grumpy Old Men and I keep shouting "Yes, that's right" at the screen. No hope for me, I suppose.

[Joe Shmoe]

Willowman I Totally understand. It happens to us all.:-)

[The Prince]

This is a totally ridiculous question.

Is it not common knowledge that Southern folk largely pronounce certain words with an extended 'A' e.g. 'Bath' will sound like 'Barth,' where as Northerners tend to pronounce in a 'flatter' manner, usually as the word is spelt e.g. 'Bath.'

Who is to say which method is correct?

Although, the Southern method is largely deemed the more posh, traditional 'English way' and sounds more refined in my opinion - unless one is from Kent or Essex that is.

[Pleasehelp87]

I agree with Prince it' doesn't really matter and besides the reason they speak with a RP accent on the news, especially the BBC, is because people find it authoritative and therefore trust the information. Sometime after WWII they did research into it, I think, I remember doing about it in A level English Language.