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?

Since when did a person’s class affect their ability to enunciate?

It does not, nor is that what I was commenting on. Comparing them to Coronation Street characters is extremely classist.

Vor-ter in our house 'cause we're silly :)

Up my way it’s wah-uhr. You’d be horrified 🤣

I don't think universi'y is accent. Isn't accent the way in which we sound our vowels and combinations of vowels?

I agree.

Yes, we were either in a little boat at the time, or I was, and it wasn't going anywhere. It was moored up. I could see there was some water in the bottom of it. It wasn't a large leak but there was obviously a leak of some sort.

I have tried to think what I would say if a cruise liner had developed a leak and I think I would still say that it was 'taking water' rather than that it was 'taking on water'.

As to my 'tekkin' watter', would you call that dialect? I'm not sure of the difference between dialect and the vernacular.

The members of the boating community have their terms, you know.

Fine. I won't argue technicalities. A feature of many accents rather than accent itself if you insist.

I will argue manners and tolerance though - judging someone for how they speak rather than what they're saying is rude and intolerant.

And again, I'll ask the question that I don't think anyone has answered - why is universi'y not ok but "staht" for start and "pahk" for park aren't unacceptable for the news or lazy?

What's wrong with "staht" and "pahk"?

Nothing. But I think those who think omitting a T is unacceptable, lazy, common, shouldn't be on the news etc probably can't articulate why omitting R is fine and omitting T isn't.

And the answer is just clearly good old fashioned classism.

My thoughts exactly!

It’s a good question. They are failing to pronounce a letter in the word, just as “Universi’y” is failing to pronounce a letter in a word.

In my native accent I pronounce the “r” in start.

If I speak with bad diction I’d drop the “t” in University but I’d still sound out the “r” in start.

the “r” doesn’t change depending on the diction.

For RP speakers the dropped t is also a sign of bad diction but absence of “r” is standard and acceptable.

I guess that somewhere along the line a free pass was given to dropping certain letters in RP because that’s how it had always been and the Queen also did it or something? 🤷‍♀️

But omitting the “r” is common to all non-rhotic speakers across all classes.

'Water' pronounced with a 't' has exactly the same number of sounds as 'water' pronounced with a glottal stop, so you can hardly say that the 't' is 'excluded', or that the glottal stop pronunciation is 'lazy'. You might not like it, but that's a different issue. If you're non-rhotic (i.e. don't pronounce the 'r'), the 't' pronunciation is something like

w aw - t uh

(can't do much better with just ascii characters). The glottal stop pronunciation is

w aw - ? uh

where the '?' is a sound. It isn't nothing, or the pronunciation would be

w aw - uh

which it isn't.

Thanks all. Eye opening and informative. I pronounce the r in start and the t in university. Some people don't and that's fine.

so do I. Was once on a bus in London. A young father was encouraging his young son to eat. He said ' Eat, eat' to the little boy. But as he used glottal stops, he said 'Eeh, eeh' , which sounded very strange

So do you say sta-R-t? I can't wrap my head around that, it makes the word into 2 syllables surely

There is in the north-east. We say 'worter' with our accent but people with a strong dialect for the north-east might say 'waatter'.

St ar t - one sound. StART

Have you never heard a Scottish person or someone from Bristol?

No? It’s still one syllable.

Have you never heard anyone from Scotland/NI?

The 't' is likely to become obsolete at the end of words within a generation or two. Language constantly moves and changes...

Yes I've lived in Scotland and have friends from NI. I don't see how they pronounce an r in the word. Do you mean an r like at the start of, say, roof? To me they pronounce is the same way I do, with a long a sound w-aah-tuh (scots) and w-aah-terr (NI)