Getting the joke 30 years later - just me?

[HappySquid]

I have just realised that Shaun the Sheep's name is a play on words (Shaun/shorn). Feeling rather sheepish.

Has anyone else come across a joke that only sunk in many years later or is it just me?!

You appear to think you know better than actual dictionaries. Rhoticity and non-rhoticity are a recognised and documented feature of correct, modern spoken English.

What I'm saying is that, when southern English people drop a letter, it's a "recognised feature", whereas when Cockneys drop a "t", that's - amazingly - not in the dictionary as a "recognised feature". Are you not at all interested in the culture or power forces in play here? You don't recognise anything that might shape what is and isn't in the dictionary as "proper"?

Sorry I've quoted the wrong thing

Well, there are various definitions of ‘homonym’ and some include ‘homophone’ as a subset. So not sure that’s true.

Sorry...you're right.

Eh? Can’t work out what you mean.

Re word play. Paw patrol.
Marshall is the fire dog. Fire marshal. Chase is the police dog. Police chase. And so on. Mountain dog - Everest. Flying one - Skye. Digger one - Rubble etc

Hiya!

Cockneys are southern English people. And I live in NW England, where the locals also 'drop' the 'r', as does the vast majority of England, whether north or south, rich or poor, posh or not.

Not pronouncing the r separately in the phoneme or is not "dropping a letter", any more than not pronouncing the a separately in the phoneme oa is "dropping a letter". A rhotic accent and a non-rhotic accent are both "correct", just different, in the same way that pronouncing bath with a short or a long vowel sound is "correct" both ways.

And yes, I am interested. I've taught languages for 30 years. And I've been on umpteen threads where arguments and ignorance have erupted about rhotic and non-rhotic accents. Nobody could accuse me of not being egalitarian in my annoyance - I find it equally irritating whether people call the rhotic version wrong or the non-rhotic version wrong.

I don’t pronounce Shaun like brown. Still hadn’t a clue it was meant to be a word play with shorn.

It is true. Homonyms and homophones are different.

That’s no good, you know far too much about the subject for your opinion to be allowed to be worth hearing…

Not pronouncing the r separately in the phoneme or is not "dropping a letter", any more than not pronouncing the a separately in the phoneme oa is "dropping a letter". A rhotic accent and a non-rhotic accent are both "correct", just different, in the same way that pronouncing bath with a short or a long vowel sound is "correct" both ways.

If it's all correct, then why is not pronouncing the "t" in water considered wrong? What's so different about that?

@Anonycat - I think that poster was saying Lord Sugar pronounces 'sales' like 'sows'. It's a south east dialect accent thing (perhaps 'Estuary English', not sure?) - the usual example is 'st Paws cathedral'

Ah! Thanks.

I remember reading some column about this. The author of the piece was reading to his son and wwas trying to work out what the French was, looked up the word, similar sounding french words... windereywhat it meant, connections to the Le Strange family etc etc then he realised when his kid said "doesn't it just means Grim Old Place?" 😂😂

He always says the word 'sales' as 'sows'.

Sorry, I just saw that this had already been clarified!

T-dropping is different imo, because it's neither a consistent thing (even for individual speakers), nor is it tied to a particular region (in spite of people saying it's Cockney). You hear it a bit in quite RP accents too.

No, it depends on the definition of homonym and that varies.

Nearly 500 posts though there isn't really anything to argue about. Shaun sounding a bit (variably) like shorn is a mild joke that wouldn't make anyone laugh anyway.

We 'clipped' the sheep.

Well, I spent 8 years living in the USA, and I never realised that “criss cross apple sauce” rhymes. However, I did finally realise where “Deputy Dawg” got his name: it’s just the American pronunciation of dog.

Meanwhile, there was a popular series of picture books about a llama mother and child written in rhyming couplets, which hinged on ‘llama’ and ‘mama’ rhyming. Except I can’t get them to rhyme. I notice they’ve never been published in the U.K.

Another one at the back who needs this joke explained