3 ms·
Strictly speaking, the masses adopting rhotic pronunciation was, originally, an effort at mimicking a privileged-class affectation. The extra "R" in "drawRing"
by ncmncm 4y ago
Strictly speaking, the masses adopting rhotic pronunciation was, originally, an effort at mimicking a privileged-class affectation. The extra "R" in "drawRing" did not mimic anything, though, but seemed required by the imperfectly deduced rule. Those in actual contact with the privileged class had plenty of examples to, er*, draw upon, denied to those without.
Class markers in speech are always a moving target, a sort of low-grade arms race: low stakes for the upper class, high stakes for lower.
So, pronouncing it "drawRing" is a lower-class marker, similar in a way to "aks" for "ask" in American English.
As always, all of these pronunciations are legitimate and produce no misunderstanding.
[*] "er" is pronounced "uh" or "eh", rhotically.
- yencabulator 4y ago> As always, all of these pronunciations are legitimate and produce no misunderstanding. I'm sorry but pretty much everyone who grew up with English as a second language would like to disagree. Hearing "drawRing" to this day throws me off -- I have to repeat the noise to myself internally to make sure I understood it right.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> I'm sorry but pretty much everyone who grew up with English as a second language would like to disagree. Not to put too fine a point on it, but their opinion doesn't count. Foreign speakers have no say in what's legitimate and may be confused by absolutely anything.
- yencabulator 4y agoIf you wish to argue that, I'd suggest you guard your absolute clauses a bit more carefully, as they now suddenly aren't absolute. You said "produce no misunderstanding", I demonstrated that they do.
- ncmncm 4y agoThere are now many, many more foreign speakers of English than native. They definitely have had and are having an effect, collectively, on how the language evolves.