Talk:poor

Pronunciation

I would have thought that English RP matches the first US pronunciation. The version given for Southern UK looks like a regional dialect. Northern UK usually has two syllables like Australian. I'm not really familiar with pronunciation symbols, so I hesitate to make alterations. What does anyone else think? Dbfirs 22:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Originally the UK pronunciation had one and two syllable versions, however the one syllable version was removed and references to the two-syllable version being the only correct RP pronunciation were given.

Generally northern English accents have two syllables (e.g. "poor", "beer", "moor", "deer", etc) whereas southern and upper class accents generally have just the one for these same words. Rhoticism is much more fine-grained than north and south (e.g. Somerset and Northumberland are generally rhotic, Estuary English and Yorkshire accents normally aren't). For this reason I usually mark the pronunciations "UK" and give rhotic and non-rhotic versions of both syllable patters. Were it not for the lack of references I would have changed it back to this.

As I understand it, American speakers tend to have shorter pure vowels than British speakers, instead the vowels merge into the "r" sound. The two sounds, I presume based on the way they're transcribed, are more distinct for speakers of rhotic British accents. Non-rhotic speakers extend the length of the vowel so the missing "r" does not greatly impact the length of the word. Thryduulf 23:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, and sorry to be so long in replying (I've had internet connection problems). This is a minefield, isn't it?
The pronunciation seems to be changing in the UK. As I listen to BBC weather forecasters (shipping), I realise that they all pronounce the word slightly differently, and none of them use what I would regard as "Queen's English". Dbfirs 13:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

What has been called the 'two-syllable version' is in fact a version with one syllable (the vowel is a diphthong). It is very rarely pronounced like this any more in well-spoken southern English, which is usually what RP is regarded as being (except by a few people on Wiktionary). The pronunciation /pɔː(ɹ)/ is regarded as RP and preferred by all major pronunciation dictionaries, advanced learner dictionaries, and the OED (3rd edn). It was regarded as an RP variant by Burchfield's 'New Fowler's' and in an early copy of Daniel Jones's pronunciation dictionary (published in 1913!). For this reason, I have placed /pɔː(ɹ)/ first again, the older variant second, and labelled both as RP. A similar change (called CURE lowering) has occurred with other words, such as moor, your, sure, etc., and phoneticians generally treat these variants as RP. (The references given supporting the older pronunciation have been removed: the Oxford BBC Guide to Pronunciation does not specifically recommend a pronunciation for poor, and another is a book used in London Drama Schools that does not describe typical RP.)--Dutyworth (talk) 09:03, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

RFD discussion: September–December 2020

See Talk:sick#RFD discussion: September–December 2020.