Pronunciation of water

[Machiavellian]

To me it's wor-ter. I keep hearing 'wor-eh'. Is this not lazy? Why is the t being excluded? Am I being snobbish for thinking it sounds so lazy and uneducated?

Growing up in a leafy Dublin suburb it was always said that the Spanish students preferred to come to our neck of the woods because it had "the best" spoken English. As an adult I realised that if there was any truth in that at all, it will have been down to rhoticity.

Made all the worse because they don't appear to teach Cockney at drama school.

You have no idea what I sound like, what a stupid comment!
You must have lived a restricted life if you think that everyone has a strong regional accent - they simply don't. I know loads of people with very neutral accents, you can't tell where they come from at all.

🤣 I can assure you that what you think is neutral is a very strong accent to me, and if you moved to another area or country you'd find yourself asked about your accent a lot. My accent is a mild middle class accent where I live, but when I travel it's anything but. "Strong regional accent" isn't an insult.

Calling someone stupid is though.

A classic case of southern English MNers thinking that the world should revolve around them.

Again you show you know nothing about me whatsoever. I have lived and worked in many areas of the UK, both north and south, and often have had people asking where I'm from as they just can't tell from my accent.
Possibly your "mild middle class accent" is actually quite a strong regional accent if people comment on it when you travel elsewhere?
It certainly is stupid to insist, as you have done, that someone has a strong regional accent when you've never met them or heard them speak in your life.

I'd be embarrassed to admit I was this ignorant. Ghastly indeed.

I've never met anyone who doesn't have a strong regional accent. Everyone does, that's the point. That's why people are asking you about it, because your accent is very noticeable to them even if they can't pinpoint it. Bet they could identify a country at least and almost certainly a broad region.

Do you have a non-rhotic accent? If so, that's very strong as you will pronounce words with an R very differently to most native English speakers.

This (fellow Scot). I’m gobsmacked actually, no idea there were so many pronunciations of this simple word, lol. I love an accent.

Oh and that's my point. In Ireland I have a mild newsreader type accent typical in the part of Dublin I grew up in. As soon as I leave Ireland my accent becomes very strong, and in some other regions of Ireland too.

I'm guessing you're English, if you go to Scotland/Wales/Ireland/the US/Australia/New Zealand/Canada you'll be perceived as having a very strong accent indeed. The accent of your home region.

Everyone has a strong regional accent.

@ISeriouslyDoubtIt

You must have lived a restricted life if you think that everyone has a strong regional accent - they simply don't. I know loads of people with very neutral accents, you can't tell where they come from at all

How amusing.

Of course everyone has an accent.

Just because someone can't place yours doesn't mean it doesn't exist. 🤣

Hard to tell on MN if people are spelling with an r to indicate a longer 'a' sound or if they actually pronounce the 'r'.

It's always to elongate the vowel. Poor H (haitch ).

My DH grew up in the UK and sometimes puts in an r in speech where it isn't, usually at the end of words ending in an 'ah' sound so like idee-er for idea.

Exactly. Astounding ignorance and snobbery on this thread. I can’t believe that there is a poster who genuinely thinks that they don’t have a regional accent as they only speak ‘proper English’ 🤣

I had the same experience. A kind American translated it for me. I would have written it as 'wodder' but your 'wahdder' is probably nearer.

I'd love to know what Americans hear when we sat water (the ones that say wodder/wahdder) as from other discussions they think they are saying a t it's just they say t like like. But I can't see how an English water isn't at all descipherable but I've heard lots of other stories similar to mine!

Exactly.
I don't know how to spell the word 'boat' the way I said it, but I once said to my friend, "Yer booats tekkin watter, boy." If he'd been a stranger I would have said, "It looks as if your boat's taking water."

I think people should be able to speak good standard English and drop into the vernacular/the dialect when they want to be less formal.

An undergraduate on the TV news referred to his 'universi'y'. I think he should be intelligent enough to see that there is a 't' in the word and pronounce it properly on a formal occasion such as a TV interview, even if his main subject isn't English.

Having a different accent or dialect is nothing to do with intelligence.

Odd that I need to type that out for you, but anyway I'm afraid you're going to have to find something else to feed that superiority complex.

What does “your boat’s taking water” mean? Were you in rowing boats or canoes at the time?! It just seems an oddly-specific example!

If you mean that your friend had to start baling out, fast, I think would have said “your boat’s filling up with water” or “there’s water coming into your boat”. Maybe taking on water”?

Universi'y is accent, not dialect. Any accent should be acceptable on the news, or in any other sphere.

I would assume that it would be understood in the boating community. Irrelevant to anyone else in that moment.

Why should it be acceptable? I don't want to hear the BBC news being read by someone who sounds like they're off The Only way is Essex or Coronation Street. Bradley Walsh as a newsreader, no thanks.

Ah MN, where blatant classism never dies!

“The boating community” 😂😂

It was just a question!