How do you pronounce Tortoise?

[Veryverycalmnow]

I noticed yesterday, when talking about this animal in a group, that everyone was pronouncing it 'toytoyce' while I would say, 'tortuss'.
I wonder if anyone finds this remotely interesting😆 or has a different way of saying it?

Nope.
It's a connected speech thing and called intrusive R.
It's to do with the movement the mouth has to make to get from the ending of the word "law" (which is the same sound as the "or" in "horse" to the beginning of "abiding". You've got two vowel sounds and it's more "difficult" physically (and interrupts the flow of the utterance) to make a break between them than to add another little sound- in this case intrusive R.

"drawing" is the same. I think if you listen carefully, there would be very very few, if any, native speakers of English who don't have an /r/ in there.

Lol- yes.
Totally different but do you remember how Boris Johnson said "Coronavirus"?
5 syllables for us plebs, and 3 for him.
"Cronavahs"

Yeah if I want to say either without the R I have to leave an unnatural pause

Tortuss for me, Midlands born.

No 'r' in drawing where I come from (NI). No matter how hard you listen for it!!

Me - tort-oise (Scottish)
DH - toruss (Kent)

Well, obviously the first visible 'r' is pronounced😅😅

I had a philosophy lecturer who used the pronounce it 'Tur-twaze'. It was very distracting.

It's quite surprising how often 'tur-twazes' appear in the philosophical world as I swear it was every lecture.

Not in Scotland! That's 5 million of us- "very few?!"

Phonetically.

You don't have an R in drawing in Scotland? (Genuine geeky question- I always thought that intrusive R was a given in variations like Scottish and N Irish English where rhotic R was very predominant)
Do you pronounce the "w" as a "w" (iyswim?) So kind of like "wing" at the end? )

Tor-tuss for me .. I don’t think I’ve heard any of my family or friends say it a different way

@PAFMO In Scotland and NI, yes we pronounce our 'r's' (rhotic), but we don't add in an 'r' where one doesn't exist. So, yes, drawing is draw-wing, with the 'w' sound just a beat longer. Sounds completely normal here, but I could see where it wouldn't come naturally to those whose regional accent places an 'r' for better flow.

I mix it up with both

Absolutely not. I remember as a child watching Blue Peter and being really really confused why all the presenters kept saying "drawRing". I genuinely could not make myself say the word that way if I tried.

The way I think of how we speak in Scotland is this - we pronounce all the letters that ARE there- so "Door" has an audible R at the end and "whales" sounds different to "Wales" (there is a strong exhale of breath to make the "wh" sound)

and we don't add letters that are not in the word.

So ""drawing" is just draw (aw sound as in "aw that's cute" followed by "ing") and the athlete Jessica Ennis is has no R between her two names.

Sorry, to answer your question no, to me it doesn't sound like "wing" at the end. Just "ing". The "w" lengthens the "a" sound I guess. So I guess that undermines my theory that we pronounce all the letters that are there!

I have an ongoing argument with FH about this - he says "tortus" and I say "tortoys" - so I've started taking the piss and saying "tor-twaaaaah" 😅

We have a similar disagreement over the word "tongue". He says "tung" and I say "tong" . I know I'm right on that one!

I say tor-toice, never heard toytoice apart from toddlers 😆

I'm Irish so have a rhotic accent. Definitely no intrusive r. I say drawing as just draw-ing, not drawring or draw-wing.

I think if you listen carefully, there would be very very few, if any, native speakers of English who don't have an /r/ in there.
Is this really true if you consider all the native English speakers outside of England? It's not true for Ireland at least and pps have said it's not true for Scotland and NI. I don't know about American accents etc.

I say tor-tus, DH says tor-toyce

To add, we are both from Southampton.

Northumberland/borders

Tor tuss

Draw ing

I would roll my eyes at draw ring lol.

It anyone pronounces it like those group members, then they are not on good speaking terms with anyone who reads books.

Definitely 'tortuss', as Lewis Carol explains in Alice. I think PPs have mentioned it already!

Tortoyse is....unusual...but I don't get 'toytoise' at all!

Tor tuss