Flower/Flour

In other varieties of English, flour and flower are homophones, i.e. they are pronounced alike. In British English, for example, flour and flower are both pronounced /flaʊə/. 

In Singapore, however, they are not homophones — ignoring actual vowel quality (i.e. /a, ʌ, ɑ/), flower is /flawə/ while flour is /flaː/. The pronunciation of flour is probably a result of smoothing, in which less salient vowels are dropped.

Subject–Verb Agreement

The highlighted verb (Straits Times Life!, 9 September 2011) would probably have English teachers reaching for their red pens. The correct form is the singular has, rather than plural have, because the verb should agree with the head noun, collection, and not the nearest noun, watercolours.

Incidentally, in British English the name Farquhar is pronounced /ˈfɑːkə/ or /ˈfɑːkwə/. However, most Singaporeans who have attended English-medium schools will remember having been taught the pronunciation /ˈfɑːkwɑː/. Considering that Singaporeans generally make no distinction between /ʌ/ and /ɑː/, insisting on using the British pronunciation for this British name would probably be ill advised.

Worse, Worst

The superlative worst above is wrong (Straits Times Life! supplement, 19 February 2011).  Instead, the comparative worse was needed here since the writer meant that there was no time ‘more bad’ than that referred to in the article.

Perhaps there is a phonological explanation for the above: worst ends in the consonant cluster /st/, and since the following word begins in /t/, the writer would probably have dropped the first /t/ in speech, and allowed this to influence his spelling. 

The deletion of /d/ and /t/ in rapid speech is in fact very common, even among BBC announcers; see, for example, David Deterding’s article.

A/An

In Singapore schools we are often taught to use the indefinite article an before words beginning in vowels, and a elsewhere. However, many teachers seem unaware that this rule applies at a phonological level and not an orthographic one — in other words, it applies to sounds, not spelling.

This misunderstanding of the rule has probably led to the error in the caption above (Straits Times online, 14 February 2011): a NTU Linguistics student ought to be an NTU ..., because NTU begins in a vowel sound, /e/.

Phonics by Kelly Chopard

The above is a description of a phonics course. As can be seen from the title and body text, the instructor suggests that the pronunciation of phonics as /ˈfəʊnɪks/ is Singaporean and wrong.

Well, here’s an opinion from somebody who knows better — Professor John Wells, possibly the world’s foremost authority on English pronunciation, and writer of the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (LPD).

Below is his entry for phonic. (The ~s means that, in terms of pronunciation, phonics differs only in that one detail from the headword, phonic.)

Unsurprisingly he prioritizes the more common pronunciation, /ˈfɒnɪks/, but also lists /ˈfəʊnɪks/ as a variant for British Received Pronunciation (RP). The same pattern is observed in the General American pronunciations, given after ||.

The fact that /ˈfəʊnɪks/ is not prioritized does not mean it is non-standard. In the LPD, non-standard (i.e. non-RP) pronunciations are marked §, as we can see in the following discussion of /wɪθ/ in Britain:

It is unclear on what basis (apart from irrational prejudice) Kelly Chopard believes that /ˈfəʊnɪks/ is a Singaporean, hence undesirable, pronunciation worthy of ridicule, when for millions of British and American speakers it is perfectly acceptable.

It is also interesting to note that she labels this pronunciation as ‘Singlish’, a usually dismissive term for colloquial Singapore English. However, one should point out that this term refers not so much to the Singapore accent as to other features such as lexis and syntax.

Indeed, the instructor’s misuse of linguistic terms, obvious misunderstanding of issues, and stilted English should make any knowledgeable reader question her credentials.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Persephone

This is from the official English As It Is Broken website. 

The anglicized pronunciation of the Classical Greek name Persephone is /pɜːˈsefəni/.  Interestingly, the answer respells the second syllable as SAF rather than SEF, suggesting that for most Singaporean speakers the vowels /e/ and /æ/ are merged. 

It also shows that so-called phonetic respelling is an often maddeningly inexact way of indicating pronunciation, since different readers will assign different sounds to the same letters and to combinations thereof.  In fact, I suspect that most Singaporean readers would be baffled to learn that FUH is supposed to give /fə/ rather than /fu:/.

What?  Wot?

This is from Metro, a free newspaper distributed throughout London (23 June 2010). 

The headline, Water way to set a record, would probably be puzzling to many speakers of English, unless they realize that water way is supposed to be a pun on what a way.  Since water and what a are pronounced /ˈwɔːtə/ and /ˈwɒtə/ respectively in many varieties of British English, they are reasonably close rhymes.

But of course this doesn’t work for many American speakers, most of whom are rhotic (i.e. pronounce the /r/ at the end of water), pronounce wh as /hw/, and use /ʌ/ in what.

Like the Americans, most Singaporeans pronounce what as /wʌt/.  In fact, most would be surprised to learn that what is pronounced /wɒt/ in British Received Pronunciation — the pronunciation model traditionally adopted in Singapore schools (but which is evidently on its way out) — and that wander is pronounced as /ˈwɒndə/. 

/l/-deletion

This is the packaging of a car-care product.  What could conditional possibly mean?  It turns out that this product is actually a conditioner.  Quite obviously, the misspelling arose because the owner of the business, or the person in charge of marketing the product, does not pronounce syllable-final /l/, hence making conditioner and conditional homophones in his or her speech.

Farquhar

The above are publicity banners for an exhibition on William Farquhar, who, as every self-respecting student of Singapore history would know, and as the banners helpfully inform us, was the first Resident and Commandant of Singapore, 1819–1823.

In Singapore, the Scots surname Farquhar is usually pronounced /fʌkwʌ/ or /fɑ:kwɑ:/ — the usual pronunciations taught in schools.

So it invariably comes as a shock to Singaporeans to learn that it is pronounced in standard British English as /ˈfɑ:kə/ or /ˈfɑ:kwə/ (Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd edition).

However, considering that most Singaporeans do not consistently distinguish between the vowels /ʌ/ and /ɑ:/, it is perhaps wiser to stick with the Singaporean pronunciation than to insist on the standard.  Or if the standard pronunciation is indeed important, then teach the variant with /w/, i.e. /ˈfɑ:kwə/ rather than /ˈfɑ:kə/.

Cost/Cause

The highlighted word above (The New Paper, 14 April 2010) should, of course, be cost rather than cause.  As with so many typos, this one seems to have a phonological basis. 

But how do cost and cause end up as homophones (or at best near-homophones) in Singapore English when, in British Received Pronunciation (RP) for example, they are /kɒst/ and /kɔ:z/? 

The first factor is the neutralization of distinctions between vowels that are differentiated in other varieties of English: here, the distinction between short /ɒ/ and long /ɔ:/, which is responsible for pot/port being a minimal pair in RP.

The second is the phenomenon of final fricative devoicing, where /z/ becomes [s], which leads to course and cause being /kɒs/ or /kɔ:s/ in Singapore English, whereas in RP they are /kɔ:s/ and /kɔ:z/.

And finally, the simplication of consonant clusters, leading to the loss of /t/ in cost.

/l/-vocalization

The headline above, old no!, is intended to be a pun on oh no! (Straits Times, 3 April 2010).  While it may work for Singaporean speakers of English, this would probably be quite a stretch for speakers of most other varieties of English.

In British Received Pronunciation (RP), old no is pronounced /əʊld nəʊ/, and oh no as /əʊ nəʊ/ — so they are really quite different. 

In Singapore English (SgE), a realistic standard pronunciation might be /oʊld noʊ/ and /oʊ noʊ/ respectively, assuming that a diphthong is more desirable than a monophthong in each word (incidentally, the diphthong /oʊ/ is usual in American English). 

How do old no and oh no become rhymes in SgE?  First, the final consonant cluster /ld/ in old is simplified, leaving [l].  And since SgE vocalizes or deletes dark /l/, we end up with [oʊ] for both old and oh.

/l/-vocalization

An interesting typo that gives a clue to the caption writer’s pronunciation (Straits Times online, 1 March 2010). 

Obviously the writer meant former’s, but the fact that he typed formal’s suggests that both words are homophones for him.

One might surmise that he pronounces /l/ and /r/ alike, but this would be wrong.  Rather, the phenomenon that is relevant here is /l/-vocalization (or ‘vowelization’ of /l/), which means that dark /l/ either becomes a vowel, or is deleted — in other words, /l/ disappears.  And since Singapore English is non-rhotic, /r/ is not pronounced after vowels; in other words, is it not even present.  Hence, /l, r/ confusion does not arise.

Error on BBC Learning English

About a month ago I wrote to point out two errors on a clickable IPA chart on the BBC Learning English Pronunciation Tips page.  Sadly they remain unchanged after all this while, even though I immediately wrote to the BBC via its Contact Us page to alert them to the errors.

I’m glad the eminent phonetician, Professor John Wells, agrees with me.  (I’d written to him about the errors, seeing that his help had been acknowledged on the BBC site.)  Here’s an excerpt from his blog post of 7 January 2010:

Look at this chart of phonetic symbols for English (RP type). It is a pop-up that appears if you go to the BBC World Service learning English site and click on Listen to the sounds of English. Do you notice what is wrong? Compare it with the correct chart found on that page itself.  There are two discrepancies. One is that the MOUTH vowel is written as ɑʊ rather than aʊ, which is something that could perhaps even be defended as a preferable notation for the diphthong in question (though here it is unquestionably just a mistake). The other is a straightforward error: ɭ (retroflex lateral) instead of l (alveolar lateral).  Thanks to Ludwig Tan for this.

Professor Wells’s Phonetic Blog is probably a little too advanced for most undergraduate students of phonetics, but it is always fascinating.

BBC Learning English Gets Symbols Wrong

I have just discovered the BBC Learning English Pronunciation Tips page, a splendid resource not only for learners of English but also for teachers and anybody wishing to learn IPA symbols for English.  Among other things, it has an IPA chart as well as videos showing how vowel and consonant sounds are pronounced.

I particularly like the chart (Listen to the sounds of English) where each symbol, when clicked, plays the sound it represents.  (This is arguably more effective with vowels rather than consonants.) 

Two elementary errors blight this chart, however.  First, the diphthong given as /ɑʊ/ is wrong: the correct symbol is /aʊ/.  Second, the consonant /l/ is wrongly given as /ɭ/ — this latter sound is the retroflex lateral approximant which one finds in the Dravidian language Tamil; it is, loosely speaking, an /l/ sound produced with the tongue curled back (retroflex). 

What these errors show is that transcribing sounds is an exact business: there is no room for creativity or self-expression, as subtle differences may result in altogether different sounds.  I have written to the BBC pointing out these errors, and hope the chart is amended soon.

Stress

A rather unusual typo here: the headline (Independent on Sunday website, 29 November 2009) should have read The war was illegal, with was rather than war underlined for emphasis.  The typo was no doubt due to the superficial similarity of the two words.  (And no, in case you’re wondering, it was not a hyperlink.)

As the first paragraph of the article shows, the issue at hand was the legality of the war:

‘Tony Blair will be quizzed over a devastating official memo warning him that war on Iraq would be illegal eight months before he sent troops into Baghdad, it was claimed last night.’

While it would be possible to stress the word war, the effect would be to contrast it with something else, for example occupation.  This is known as contrastive stress.  But as we can see from the article, there was no such intended contrast.

Weak Forms of Function Words

Online discussion forums are a rich source of authentic language data, particularly where linguistically insightful misspellings and other errors are concerned.

In the above extract, the poster (an American) writes would of when he means would have. This misspelling would probably be rather baffling to non-native speakers of English or to speakers of new varieties of English (e.g. Singaporean), but it is very common among ‘traditional’ native speakers such as the British, Canadians and Americans.  In these traditional native varieties of English, the function words of and have have identical weak forms — /əv/ — hence the confusion in spelling.  However, this misspelling does not arise in Singapore English and other newer varieties of English since they do not generally use weak forms of function words.

Similarly, this extract suggests that the poster (British) rhymes you’re (the spelling needed in the first instance) with your.  Again, this is because in British English are has the weak form /ə/ — so both you’re and your are pronounced /jʊə/ or /jɔː/. Likewise, this does not arise in Singapore English since it generally avoids weak forms.

Pronunciation of –s suffix

This notice, seen in Ikea cafés in Singapore, encourages customers to clear their trays after eating.  As can be seen, in Singapore English pronunciation, trace and trays are homophones (different words pronounced identically): both are /treɪs/. 

By contrast, in other varieties of English, e.g. British, trace would be /treɪs/ and trays, /treɪz/.  The suffix –s, as a possessive (e.g. Chuck’s), plural (e.g. Chucks) or third-person singular present tense (e.g. chucks) marker, is realized as /s/ after voiceless sounds and as /z/ after voiced ones (vowels and voiced consonants).  This rule applies to trays, whose singular form, tray /treɪ/, ends in a vowel (voiced) sound, but not to trace /treɪs/, where the /s/ is not a suffix but part of the root.

Bald/Bore

Here is a typo that has a phonological explanation. Lamenting that many drivers do not know how to maintain their cars, the reader comments: And I have [observed that] that [some/many] drivers don’t change their tyres even though the tyres were bore (Straits Times website, 1 October 2009).

Quite obviously, the writer meant the tyres were bald. What’s interesting is that he may simply have been typing what he heard in his head — and evidently he pronounces bald and bore alike.

But how does bald /bɔ:ld/ become bore /bɔ:/? First, /d/ is lost through the process of final-consonant simplification. Next, syllable-final dark /l/ is deleted. Both are well-known features of Singapore English phonology.

Celery/Salary

This headline (Sunday Times Lifestyle, 17 May 2009) may sound ‘punny’ to Singaporeans, but speakers of other varieties of English would probably find it rather baffling.

In Singapore English, the vowels /e/ and /æ/are often merged, so that celery and salary become homophones, i.e. are pronounced alike. In other varieties, however, they are not homophonous: in British English, for example, they are respectively /'seləri/ and /'sæləri/.

Of course, context may help: salary collocates or goes with negotiation. But if one doesn’t pronounce salary like celery in the first place, then the collocation probably wouldn’t arise at all, and one would still be left wondering what negotiation has to do with the vegetable.

Umlaut


OK, this one isn’t even about English but it concerns something that crops up often enough in English newspapers to merit a mention: Sueedeutsche Zeitung is wrong; make it Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

When German words and names containing vowels with umlaut (a pair of dots) cannot reliably be typset (for example, in non-German news reports and in Internet addresses), the convention is to add an e after these vowels: hence Kaese, Loesung and Fruehling for Käse, Lösung and Frühling (meaning, respectively, ‘cheese’, ‘solution’ and ‘spring’).

Hence, Süddeutsche (south German) is spelt Sueddeutsche, even in the online version of the German newspaper (and indeed its URL, http://www.sueddeutsche.de/).

In German, the umlaut indicates that a vowel is fronted, e.g. from back rounded /u/ to front rounded /y/, the result of an historical process of assimilation.

However, in other languages, for example French, the umlaut indicates that two adjacent letters are not digraphs (two letters giving a single sound), but pronounced separately, e.g. naïve, Citroën. This convention was once even extended to English, so that cooperate was typeset as coöperate in order to indicate that the first syllable was not to be pronounced coo. Nowadays, this function is, of course, more commonly served by the hyphen.