If your accent is RP English, how do you pronounce “Glasgow”?

Ok, I get the explanation from the phonetics expert about why I’m wrong, but do you get that I say the letter name R the same as ah and ar? So I can hear an “R” in how I pronounce Glasgow. Even if R is different to the sound rrr which is at the start of “rabbit”, “Richard” etc.
Yes, because I also have a SE non-rhotic Enish accent. How I say "R" is nothing like I pronounce "R". "R" and "rabbit" indeed sound totally different.

Which is why it makes even less sense to use "ar" if you want to be understood by people who do pronounce their Rs as Rs. Because what you and I see as "ar" really isn't actually r.

Can we just divide into pirate aar and non-pirate aah, me hearties?

Oh dear @Belephant, unlike you and, it seems, the OP, ah isn't the short a of cat in my (Irish, rhotic) accent either😅

Neither is it the ar of a non-rhotic speaker though.

*short A, not sort, obviously :)

I agree with @LizzieAnt that 'ah' is definitely the sound in the word 'cat' in my (non rhotic) accent.

Maybe we can just say long A and sort A? 😅

And several posts from people with both rhotic and non-rhotic accents saying that ah isn't particularly helpful either - because in many accents it's not the same sound as ar (ie what people with non-rhotic accents mean by ar). I agree that ah would cause less obvious confusion though.
Using IPA would be best of course, but most people don't know it.

@Igotjelly

Glad you added this!

I worked with a Glaswegian 30 years ago and I was starting to think I imagined Glazgy 😁

Yes she did. But that has been superseded by multiple posts explaining why using ar rather than ah is unhelpful and confusing.

I'm the same Emu. It's extremely annoying. Also when people say they have an RP accent I think they mean they have a non regional English accent not that they speak like the Queen or Jacob Rees Mogg.

I’m from the south and say the first way.

That list now makes sense. People are putting the long /a/ sound before fricative sounds /s/, /th/ and /f/

Thank goodness I'm not the only one who found this baffling!😅

@DappledThings because that’s how the OP laid it out in her opening message.

YANBU: Glasgow in an RP English accent is pronounced “Glarsgow” with a long “arr” or “arh” in the middle. Like the “a” in “car” (in an RP accent).

YABU: Glasgow in an RP English accent is pronounced “Gl-ah-sgow”, with a short “ah”, like the “a” in “cat” (in an RP accent).

I would usually describe a long ‘a’ as ‘ah’ if trying to spell it out in layman’s phonetics, but OP took that option away by classing ‘ah’ as sounding like ‘cat’.

Poor old OP. Asks how people with an RP accent pronounce Glasgow. Is jumped on by a million Scots telling her how Scots say it. That wisnae the question guys!

However, what I am wondering is why did you want to know OP?

Thanks to whoever posted Victor and "Berry", that was a fun blast from the past. "My bread is pen"

By the way, you might be interested to know that people from the Highlands say "Glassco" rather than "Glazgo". (I'm commenting on the "s" sound, everyone else has commented enough on the vowels already, make up your own!).

I'd like to go back to your question @AchatAVendre - were you suggesting that when reciting the alphabet, people make an audible distinction between upper and lower case letters?

In other words aeiou is said differently to AEIOU?

I've never ever heard of that concept. Can you explain more please?

How are there still so many people using an R to denote a long a sound after so many comments about how inaccurate it is? Grrrr.

The first one if they are the type of person to say parstaaa instead of pasta.

Normal people say the second.

What's wrong wae Glesca?

I'm Scottish but currently live in England

It's Glazgo there is no r

My family are from Glaz-gow and I was brought up in SE England. I speak in a southern English accent and have no problem producing it Glaz-gow. In fact as a child/teenager I used to get really annoyed with people calling it Glaaaaaaaasgow (with long a or sometimes an aarrrr sound). I used to say to them, why don't you randomly change the vowel sound on other place names eg call Manchester Maaaaaaaarn-Chester or London Looooooondooooooon.
I know there's an established habit of English people saying it Glaaaaasgow but I can't understand why people feel they can't use a short "a", it's really not the equivalent of calling Paris "Paree". That would be more putting on a weegie accent and saying Glesga!

By the way, the same people who say Glasgow wrong also usually say "Bell-farst" instead of Belfast. Which annoys another branch of my family!

With an R. Glars-go

I also say:
CaRsel
BaRth
PaRth
GiraRffe
GraRsse
LaRf

I live abroad now. At language classes, they all teach with RP pronunciation, so most ‘foreigners’ will learn words that way to.

I'm a forces child so speak with a very English but none regional accent. I have lived in Scotland since 4 and I'm now 42

I say Glarrsgow

Surely a RP accent is influenced by surroundings.

I would say my daughter has an RP accent. In my opinion you can't tell where she is from, only that she has an English accent.

Our city generally doesn't have a strong accent in my opinion. (Locals may disagree).

So her pronunciations tend to be more how her friends say something or how we say something.

So she would never say Glasgow with an R because her family are from there and she knows how to say it.

But I did have to correct her the other day for her pronunciation of scone 🙈

I think your vote would be more accurate if your options were in the same order as the voting buttons. It took careful reading to select the right one. I would expect YANBU to have a bigger lead than it does.