How do you pronounce Beatrice and where are you from?

[Crunchymum]

Ball park on location of course

"Beer-triss" - South East

I understand the they sound the same. As I said 'beeah' and 'beer' sound the same in some accepts. I don't understand people typing an R where one doesn't exist though.

How can you not understand when your first sentence explains it? It is simply a phonetic representation of how they pronounce it. (Although beeah and beer aren't the same in my accent with the first having two syllables and the second only one)

@SoupDragon obviously I'm not explaining myself very well 🙈

I apologise if my use of the word minority was inaccurate.

(But it doesnt impact directly on the reason for people writing r in beer in the context of this thread)

Bee triss
Scottish

@Raffertyfair...haha yes very true on the lessons to learn the phonetic alphabet but at the very least the mumsnet fight about /r/ could be avoided

@Rafferty are you a SLT just out of nosiness? I know there are a few of us about on mumsnet

Yes - although lapsed
I added a pgce a few years down the line from graduating and worked as a specialist teacher in slc and asd units.
What about you?

@kaytee87, I think the confusion is caused by the word ‘beer’ itself. To some of the people who are typing ‘beer’ that is synonymous with ‘bee-uh’ or ‘bee-ah’ that others are using. Because those people pronounce the word ‘beer’ with two syllables. Bee. Uh. And subsequently bee-uh-triss.
However for others who are typing ‘beer-triss’ Their pronunciation of the word beer itself is different. It has one syllable and is quite difficult to type phonetically so people are using the word beer as they would say it (and subsequently beer-triss as a two syllable word) as they don’t have another way of describing it easily. So that’s why they are putting in an ‘r’ that isn’t there.
Does that help? Maybe not lol

Yes a SLT, I then did my masters in ABA therapy and worked privately but Unfortunately not able to work at the moment due to health issues. I hope to go back for the next academic year though!

@Raffertyfair and I apologise for teaching my grandmother to suck eggs with talk of phonetics and rhotic r’s

Good luck with that OwlBeThere. I hope everything goes well

Oh good God no apologies needed!

Bee-ahh-triss (Or beet-riss) - Shropshire/midlands.

First instinct Bay-ah-treece (That's supposed to reflect the French pronunciation)
Second Bee-uh-triss. But the uh is very short but definitely more uh than ah.
I'm Dublin Irish and I think I default to the French because I know a French one.

This thread has left me with an awareness that pronunciation of the word 'beer' is far more complicated than I'd ever imagined!

My own conclusion is that the 'one syllable' versions of beer are not actually one syll, there's a soft transition in the middle. Making Beatrice in this sort of accent much like Evelyn - not actually two syllables but with a short -uh- in the middle.

Then there's beer as, with two even syllables, 'bee-uh', so three-syll Bee-uh-trice.

I don't say Beatrice the way I say beer at all though!

If someone called me Bee triss or Bay a triss I would correct them.

(The French version has an acute accent on the e).

If someone called me Bee triss or Bay a triss I would correct them

Surely that applies to any name? That if someone pronounces it "incorrectly" you'd just state how you pronounce it? Unless their pronunciation was because of a regional accent or an inability to pronounce certain sounds. Because that would be both rude and futile (even if their pronunciation annoys you).

I'd imagine you'd only get called Bay a treece if you were French/taken to be French/talking to a French person. It is the default pronunciation of the name for me because I know a French Beatrice (complete with the accent that I don't know how to type) and so it is what I think if I see the name. But if you were introduced as Bee-ah-triss I wouldn't spontaneously revert to French.

Probably doesn’t apply to Kate.

Well if we're derailing onto Evelyn, you can pronounce it Eev-lin, Ever-lin, and Ev-lin. I've met examples of all three.

And I've also met a Kate who pronounced it Katy (I work with the public, I meet a lot of people). Yes it's non-standard. Yes that's definitely how she spelt it and pronounced it.

Well if we're derailing onto Evelyn, you can pronounce it Eev-lin, Ever-lin, and Ev-lin. I've met examples of all three.

Ev-lin doesn't make sense, surely that'd be Yvelin like Yves

There’s always one...

There are about a billion threads about Evelyn already. My sole point there was about the short 'uh' conjunction that exists, amongst most of those speakers who claim to say / hear it as two distinct syllables (Ev-lin), as with beer-triss.

I'm challenging anyone to say 'beer' as one syllable, really and truly.

The closest I can get to this sounds like a subtle 'blend' from one, ever so gently into another.

I truly say ‘beer’ as 1 syllable. Like ‘bir’. I say ‘here’ in the same way. But I haven’t been following the thread so maybe I shouldn’t shove my oar in 😁 I say Beatrice with 3 syllables.

floraloctopus that was my great aunty Evelyn, you have to imagine an elderly Yorkshire miner's wife, very broad accent. Not a million miles from Thora Hird. Definitely Ev-lin. Very short "Ev". I really like it, much more so than Eev-lin.

May well have been a mispronunciation, I can't imagine her parents were very cosmopolitan given the time and place they grew up. But we had lots of very unusual names in that generation of our family: Freda, Miriam, Eileen, Thora, Oswald.