Pronounciation of here

[Skippersocks]

Please can you help to resolve an ongoing dispute?

Does the word 'here' have one or two syllables?

Whilst we are at it, how about the word 'hour'?

TIA

Where I'm from here would have one syllable and sound like 'hear' or 'heer'.

Hour would have two syllables and sound like 'ow-er'.

To me, both have only one syllable. Hour is pronounced arh, like what you say when the doctor asks you to say Ah, so cannot possibly be two syllables

OP, we can't give you a definitive answer until you tell us what accent you are asking about. Do you mean in RP English?

These are words that vary dramatically throughout the UK as they are vowel-heavy and vowels are the bits of words that vary most from region to region.

In may accent (Central Belt Scottish) "here" is one syllable - "heer" but my "ee" is totally different from that of an RP speaker and I pronounce the "r" at the end very clearly.

"hour" is 2 - ow-ur, again with the R very clearly vocalised.

It's a little bit off to post in the assumption that all native Englsh speakers have the same pronounciation and any one is more correct than the others.

I don't think I can say either "here" or "our/hour" with one syllable.

My accent is Southern but definitely not RP.

I am very RP, and hour is pronounced with one syllable - bit like arh.

Here and our are one syllable words to me - Edinburgh way.

For me, "here" is one syllable, and I pronounce the r. "Our" is two syllables, again r is pronounced. I have a rhotic American accent.

This reminds me of the game in "Cabin Pressure" where people compete as to how long they can last using words of only one syllable. Apparently poor John Finnemore came in for quite a lot of stick for using words like "beer" and "here".

I love how you put a thread title like this in pedants' corner, and have not yet been pulled up on the it.

On it, IT!

Me I can't spell either

hour and our are exactly the same for me in the east mids and have two syllables.

Here and hear are the same too and have one syllable (although I think I might sometimes pronounce here with two syllables - I'm confusing myself now saying it over and over)

This drives me mad. Here is a 1 syllable word to both me and my DH, although we live in an area where it is said as 'hee-yer'. We are always correcting DD as it just really grates on our nerves.

www.howmanysyllables.com/words/here

I have never heard any one sat 'there' as a 2 syllable word ('they-er'), so why it only applies to here I'll never know.

In the local area people also say 'school' as a 2 syllable word (skoo-erl), which drives me equally batty!

In many parts of Scotland, 'there' would be pronounced with two syllables.