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

[Wigeon]

Settle an argument between DH and me:

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).

Excellent!

Definitely the first one … glars-go! X

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh

I'm Scottish it's pronounced Glazgo. There is no room for an R in Glasgow.

But the question wasn't "how do Scottish people pronounce Glasgow", it was"how do people with a RP English accent pronounce Glasgow?". And we pronounce it as though it's got an R or "ah" in it.

Well the conclusion is you all pronounce it incorrectly then.

According to who? Do you pronounce Paris like a French Person?
What about Warsaw? What about Welsh places?
Or are you pronouncing them wrong?

My friend is from Newcastle. If I say it with my Southern English accent it has a long A sound Newcahstle/Newcarstle. If I say it with his accent (aka a short A) he tells me not to take the piss. Same with my friend from Liverpool.

Or not.
Or you mix it up a bit 😉

Thanks for the link @DuesToTheDirt.

It's the second

Mother Glasgow is Glesga to the people, the rest of you can call it what you want.

It’s not an R in a non-rhotic accent. When people write it as ‘glars’ what they are trying to convey is a long ahh sound as in bar or argue, as opposed to a short ah as in cash or bash. The r is misleading and confusing and as is always the case with these threads shows that we REALLY need to teach people the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) which has symbols for every sound we can make to prevent this confusion. 😂

There is no ‘standard’ accent. RP is one accent the same as any number of others. It’s also variable with some pronouncing it with a short a and some with a long one. It’s literally a pointless argument as it’s like asking how does a geordie pronounce butter…it varies.
I’m a SALT and linguistics is my field just for some idea that I’m not making this up.

Welsh places, probably yes. It’s one thing having an accent that differs in your native tongue, it’s another altogether mispronouncing letters in another language. Anyone who is saying ‘betoos ee co-ed’ for Betws-y-Coed, or ‘Lanelly’ for Llanelli is very much saying it wrong.

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.

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'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

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.

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!

What's wrong wae Glesca?

I'm Scottish but currently live in England

It's Glazgo there is no r

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

Normal people say the second.

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.

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?

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!).

@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’.

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