Talk:Comparison of American and British English/Archive 5

Letter writing
I am from Hong Kong and noticed that in the article some Americans use "Dear Sir:" at the start of the letter. From what I was taught in Hong Kong (and it was a bilingual education), the colon is considered very wrong and should not be used. It was emphisised because in Chinese letter writings it should always be using colons instead of comma and was a common mistake for Hong Kong students to mix up. I wonder if this is the same in the UK as well (I am currently studying in the UK, but I never have asked anyone regarding this matter as nobody uses colon anyway)?


 * Terminating letter salutations with a colon is the common usage in American letters among all educated writers. As a student of history, I have seen letters in archives from over a century ago (and even older) that conform to this style.


 * American English differs from British English in many ways because of (1) the Atlantic Ocean and (2) the American Revolution. After the Revolution, the two nations' languages, accents, laws, and cultures began to gradually evolve in different directions.  The colon/comma issue is just one of them.  --Coolcaesar 00:21, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Indeed, British people do not use the colon; i was always taught to use a comma and ive never had them mixed up as ive never seen a colon used in that way over here. -- jeffthejiff  ( talk ) 11:25, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Also, please understand that there are differenences as well when one is writing a personal letter versus the times when one is writing a business or professional letter. A colon may be used now at the end of the Salutation; however, I have seen this rule change according to the region of this nation several times even in my short life-- a mere 33 years old.  Our languages, both American and the Queen's English, are alive and thriving.  What one person learned and accepted five years ago could easily and likely become outdated  within a year.  Things change and grow that quickly.  Amazing, isn't it? --Nicholas Outland  18:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Personal Pronouns in British and American English
What about the tendency in colloquial American English to use object pronouns as subjects, e.g. "Me and my girl went to the movies" instead of "My girl and I went to the movies." ? Shouldn't that be mentioned in the grammar section ? I understand that British speakers also sometimes do the same  (e.g. in expressions like "Me too!"), but the change seems to more advanced in the US where, in certain uneducated dialects (e.g. certain varieties of African-American English), evem "him" or "her" may be used as subjects.


 * I don't think it is a difference. In the UK "Me and my girl went to the movies" ""My girl and me went to the movies" would be more common than "My girl and I went to the movies", except maybe by BBC newsreaders! -- Chris Q 08:00, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Time
Is it worth mentioning that while both Americans and British say the time is "five fifteen", the British will more commonly say it's "a quarter past five", while Americans if they don't say "five fifteen" may sometimes say "a quarter after five"? Joe D (t) 22:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Is there any variation in how English speakers of varying dialects would interpret an indication of time such as "half three". In Australia, this would normally be considered "3:30" (with an implied "past"). I know that in German, the equivalent "halb drei" would be interpreted as "2:30" (with an implied "nach" ["until"]).--Jeffro77 09:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * As an American living in The Netherlands, I have, for the first time, had to familiarise myself with "2:30" (or as it is written here: "14.30") being spoken as "half drie". For Americans, "half three" could only mean "one and a half", just as "half eight" would mean "four". We run into even more confusion here when the Dutch refer to "half november" to mean 15 November, rather than 15 October, which would be consistent with their use of the form as applied to the time of day.

Durova's edits recently
Durova's edits just raised an interesting issue. In the United States, most postsecondary schools (with the exception of trade or vocational schools) have general education or breadth requirements so that students are forced to take a minimum number of courses outside of their major or concentration. Usually these are set up so that the student must take one course from several different areas; for example, the College of Letters and Science at the University of California, Berkeley has a seven-course breadth requirement. Is there a similar arrangement in any other countries? If not, this fact should be noted in University and possibly in Education in the United States. --Coolcaesar 22:49, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

"on/in Churchill Road"

 * although this can depend on whether or not the street is closed at one end

I moved this to the end of the paragraph, and expanded it:
 * On the other hand, in British usage one might describe a house as being "on" a very long, main road, especially one leading to a particular place, e.g. "on (the) London Road".

In my experience (I am English) "on" is only used of major roads, so I felt this needed further explaining. It also needed reordering to make sense. I also clarified "actually in the street" to "in the middle of the road" as I felt the previous wording was US-biased and rather awkward. Hairy Dude 05:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Erroneous American, and British, verb morphology
Thrive-throve-thriven is definitely not standard American English. In fact, having never heard those conjugations in my life, I would have guessed they were Britishisms. Neither are the previously given examples of mixing of the preterite and past participle forms good ones. It may be true that Americans do such a thing, but not with those verbs. Spring-sprang-sprung and shrink-shrank-shrunk are the only common usages by people that aren't young children making mistakes or people speaking Ebonics. Shrunken is used exclusively as an adjective.


 * No sirree. It's a regional thing. Just because those conjugations are not used in your region, or by most so-called educated speakers, or in common/official writing, or in belles lettres, doesn't mean they are not used at all. The article was actually clear. Do yourself a favor and go grab a dictionary. See you around.


 * Just dropped in here to see what's up. At first I thought JackLumber (the writer of the above paragraph) was wrong.  So I looked at my dictionary to look up the word thrive. It turns out that throve and thriven are valid forms of thrive, according to the Random House Webster's College Dictionary.  I learn something new on Wikipedia every day!  --Coolcaesar 07:49, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Wait-wait-wait- I was aware of both the regular and irregular forms of thrive, but I took the word of the guys who wrote down that section asserting that thrive-throve-thriven is strictly American and thrive-thrived-thrived is the only form used in BrE. But, surprise, it turns out that is not like this, any. The Oxford English Dictionary: quote thrive - Pa. tense throve; pa. pple. thriven. Also pa. tense and pple. thrived unquote. "The spirit of resistance throve the more." --- Charlotte Mary Yonge. I'm coming clean---I thought I sounded kinda Mr. Know-It-All, and I've got to admit that no one among us knows diddlysquat about this. Americans, Britons, whatever. Thanks be to the guy who aroused the question. And, Coolcasear, your not the only one who learns something new every day. In sum, the section needs rewritten (sic). So bad. --JackLumber 11:39, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Guys, you reading this yet? I got news. Further research shows that, in spite of Oxford's claims, the thrive scenario is exactly the same on either side of the pond---the regular forms are everywhere preferred and "throve-thriven" are obsolescent. Case closed, I'd guess.--JackLumber 12:49, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Asking for money
Regarding the recent addition:

+ Whereas a speaker of British English might say "Wotcher, mate. Mind loaning us a few quid till Sunday, love?", a speaker of American English would say "Yo ma homies! Gimme ten bucks until Sunday, K?".

I think this falls into the so-funny-I-forgot-to-laugh category. Surprising that it was added by an admin, User:JIP; kudos to the anonymous user 152.78.98.1 for removing it after it was on the page for two days. ProhibitOnions 20:12, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Counties names
I've just removed this section:


 * In the names of counties of the British Isles, the word county comes before the name e.g. County Limerick (Ireland) or is simply absent, e.g. Glamorgan (Wales) or Kent (England), whereas in the U.S., it comes after the name, e.g. Washington County.

Only for County Durham among the English counties does the word County come before the name. In Ireland it's everywhere but that's an Irish custom. In Great Britain, the widespread use of 'shire' as a suffix is the equivalent of 'County'. Shire is not used as a suffix on some counties (Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Middlesex, Essex, Kent, Suffolk, Norfolk, Northumberland) normally because there is some aspect of the way they were named which was different, eg. "Middlesex" = "Land of the Middle Saxons". David | Talk 18:58, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well spotted. There's no need to call it County Nottinghamshire, that would mean County Nottingham's County. -- Boothman 21:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Devon and Dorset used to be Devonshire and Dorsetshire. Jooler 13:48, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Intensifiers?
One difference between American and British English I have often encountered (working in a US-based company) is that when Americans say something is "quite interesting" a Brit would normally take that to be damning with faint praise, whereas the American actually means it is "very interesting".

Are there more examples of intensifiers or other types of modifiers with this sort of variation of meaning? DrJohnBrooke 15:56, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... I'm not entirely sure of your reasoning there - look at the programme QI. I think it depends on the tone of voice rather than phrase used. -- Boothman 16:55, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I mostly agree with John Brooke. In British English, "quite" can have the sense of "very" or "somewhat", depending on tone of voice. In American English (correct me if I'm wrong), I think it exclusively has the meaning "very". Stephen Turner (Talk) 16:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


 * In fact, I see this is already at List_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_British_and_American_English. (I'd actually got confused and thought this was on that article's talk page). Stephen Turner (Talk) 16:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


 * And guess who edited that? Of course, JackLumber 21:15, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Stephen Turner, but not John Brooke. I don't think quite has any more connotation of damning than ny other intensifier does, including very (in the UK anyway). I think it's just a word on a par with "rather" or "fairly". -- Boothman 19:52, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Periods in initialisms?
I have a sense that periods between each letter of an unpronounceable initialism (e.g., U.S.A., U.K.) is more of an American practice than a British one (although today even in America it's somewhat uncommon). Ideas? &mdash;Casey J. Morris 00:22, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


 * From my experience, most Americans do not use them. Additionally, since they look sort of weird with periods in them, I do not think many printed things I've seen use them, either. However, The New York Times uses them (N.C.A.A, G.O.P., N.F.L., G.M., H.I.V., ... but AIDS (since you pronounce it as a word, not as initials)). //MrD9 00:31, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
 * So far we're of accord but my question is whether the Britons would consider this usage correct (if somewhat stodgy). &mdash;Casey J. Morris 01:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


 * In Britain I'd say that periods (we call them full stops, by the way) are tending to disappear. U.S.A. and U.K. look a bit odd, or certainly old-fashioned. H.I.V. would be very odd indeed, and A.I.D.S. is inconceivable. Similarly, in abbreviations like Mr and Dr, the norm here is NOT to put a full stop after. Purists would say that a contraction (with the last letter of the full word still present) does not take a full stop, while an abbreviation (where the end of the word is chopped off) does &mdash; so Mr, Dr, St, but vol., p., etc. But I reckon that distinction is disappearing, and the trend here is very much towards omitting all such full stops (sorry, periods). I certainly generally write "etc" with no dot. [sorry - gone a bit off-topic, perhaps. Back to the original question: AIDS, USA, UK, Mr, Dr, St are certainly "correct". U.S.A. is correct but old-fashioned. etc is probably incorrect, but I predict it will be correct within a few years. ] Snalwibma 09:42, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


 * While St ('Saint') is correct, it generally includes a full stop/period, especially when using the unstressed pronunciation, 'sənt' in combining form, e.g., "St. Patrick". 'Etc.' should always have a dot.


 * I'd say that full stops between initialisms are usually left out, espcially in organisation names, hence UEFA, FIFA, HSBC, Lloyds TSB. I still use Dr., Mr., Prof., because although the last letters are still present, purists could argue that Dr. should be D'r, Mr. M'r etc. And I try to use "etc." rather than "etc", but I'm unsure on "eg.", "e.g." and "eg" ditto "ie". I think the standard here is to leave out full stops in initialisms, especially the ones at the end of the name (Rochdale A.F.C. seems weird to me, I think it should be Rochdale A.F.C). -- Boothman 10:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


 * "eg" is always correctly written "e.g.", and the same goes for "i.e.". "Dr" is never "D'r". Periods can be included in initials, though it is more common now to exclude them. The worst thing that can be done is to use them inconsistently, i.e., "A.F.C." or "AFC" but never "A.F.C".--Jeffro77 10:07, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Check out pages 7 & 8 of this excerpt from Pam Peter's Cambridge English Usage Guide. (If you've got the time.) --JackLumber 12:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the link, Jack. Like punctuation in general, there are no standard rules for this, but in general common abbreviations can do without the periods, which otherwise help as a pronunciation guide; a similar usage occasionally seen in Britain is to write out as words those abbreviations that are to be read as them (Nato, Aids) and capitalizing those that are not (UNHCR). IMHO, US (I.M.H.O., U.S.) news stylebooks tend to err too heavily on the side of punctuation. ProhibitOnions 12:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

60.240.88.48 - Would you please tell me why you've added stops to "US" in my recent addition? I notice that throughout the article usage seems to be "U.S." (with stops) but "UK" (without stops). Why? US = United States, UK = United Kingdom - why should one have stops and not the other? I agree that both forms (with & without stops) are acceptable, but I would have expected consistency with both abbreviations in the same format within a single article. It seems to me odd to use one form for one abbreviation and a different form for another very similar abbreviation in the same article. This seems to be borne out by Jack Lumber's citation from Pam Peter's Cambridge English Usage Guide above. TrevorD 16:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, American lawyers (that would include me) tend to err heavily on the side of punctuation, especially at the federal level. Although some states like New York use relatively few periods, most state courts and the federal judiciary follow Bluebook style, which generally prescribes a lot of periods.  For example, the United States Reports is abbreviated as U.S. and the United States Code is U.S.C.  I think American journalists like to use a lot of periods because that's the way us lawyers do it---and a lot of our journalists are either lawyer wannabes who couldn't get into law school, or former lawyers who burned out.  And American lawyers, as a group, are quite conservative like the American population in general.


 * Besides tradition, I suspect that the general American sentiment in favor of punctuation is also motivated by the desire to avoid ambiguity and maintain readability. Of course, there has been a trend to drop periods in acronyms of four letters and longer. For example, the letters for the University of California, Los Angeles were consistently spelled as U.C.L.A. in all early signage and documentation.  But it is now universally known as UCLA.  --Coolcaesar 21:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * So presumably you would also tend to write U.K. (not UK)? So why isn't the article consistent for the two abbreviations? I'm not specifically objecting to U.S., but to the inconsistency. -- TrevorD 23:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Greetings
Hi, Boothman - You have added "It is worth noting however, that Merry Christmas is far more common in Britain than the Happy version." Really? Do you have any evidence? I'd say exactly the opposite. Snalwibma 21:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I could dig out all last year's Christmas cards if you like - but seriously, Merry Christmas is used much more often than Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas sounds weird to me, and I'm from the UK. Just trust me, I know. -- Boothman 17:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Ummm, errrr... I also am from the UK, and in the UK, and I would still say the exact opposite! "Merry Christmas" sounds odd, forced and (funnily enough) American to me &mdash; I get a whiff of White Christmas and Frank Sinatra off it. I'm not trying to be difficult, just telling it how it is from my perspective. I don't dispute your impression, or what your friends (hardly an unbiased sample!) write on the Christmas cards they send - but I do think that a statement on behalf of the entire population of this country should be backed up by some evidence! (oh - and Happy St Patrick's Day!) Snalwibma 20:37, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I wonder if there's a class difference. Without wishing to guess the social class of Boothman and Snalwibma(!), Happy Christmas sounds more "higher" and Merry Christmas more "lower" class to me. (Of course, we still have a lot of phrases like that in British English even in these relatively classless days: "have a bath" vs "take a bath" etc.). Stephen Turner (Talk) 12:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The Christmas cards are ones bought from shops which say "Merry Christmas" or "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year". "Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year" would sound odd wouldn't it? It's always been Merry Christmas wherever I've been, and in fact my father detests phrases such as Happy Christmas and Happy Xmas.


 * Straw Poll via Google (UK pages only):
 * Results 1 - 10 of about 488,000 for "happy christmas"
 * Results 1 - 10 of about 1,430,000 for "merry christmas"


 * My poll, although by no means accurate suggests Merry is far more common than Happy. -- Boothman 13:09, 18 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The combined greeting is defintely MC and HNY - but I would still say HC if no NY was involved... Let's not take this too far, but I think there are probably all sorts of biases in that Google poll (such as, for a start, the influence of the combined phrase). Bottom line is, I think you have no justification for the statement that MC is "far more common" than HC. I would accept something like "also very commonly used". Snalwibma 19:41, 18 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Alright then, we'll do it your way if we must. -- Boothman 22:18, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

an before H-?
The article says: ''Largely related to differences in pronunciation, there are differences surrounding whether to use "a" or "an" before words beginning in h-. For example, the British would say "an hallucination", whereas Americans would say "a hallucination". This follows the British rule that "an" should be used if the first syllable of an h- word is unstressed.'' As far as I am concerned, this is simply untrue. I'd say "an hotel" is in fact more AmEng than BrEng; and BrEng dictionaries (e.g. Collins) say that "an" before H is obsolete. Permission to delete this paragraph? Snalwibma 21:37, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


 * As a British person I can say that the most common occurance of this rule seems to be before the word history. I personally do not use this rule, and therefore say "a" before all words beginning with H. I'm not sure that its so much an American difference in the language, rather than a personal preference. --Mal 07:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * More American than British? I have never ever said "an hotel" myself. American grammars too say that "an + voiced h" is obsolete. Actually I would have never figured such a thing, as I have never bumped into "an + h" while reading British writing. --JackLumber 14:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this is just a general trend for the silent "h" on borrowed French words to evolve into an anglicized version over time. I've been struck in the past by the fact that older Americans generally don't sound the "h" in "herb" - a pronunciation I've never heard from British/Australian speakers. Conversely, another example of this evolution that I rather regret is the pronunciation of the "h" in the word which is the letter's name - aitch; or increasingly in Britain since around 1990, "haitch". Previously, the standard would have been to say, "You spell it with an aitch," whereas increasingly people in Britain would say, "You spell it with a haitch."


 * I've often thought it would be interesting to begin a Wikipedia article to document changes in English vocabulary and pronunciation as they occur. For example, you might list "hassle" - probably invented in California around 1967; still current in 2006. Adrian Robson 17:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Not just older Americans---most all Americans (including myself, OK I'm not that young anymore, but I'm still in my prime) don't voice the "h" in "herb," and therefore write "an herb." Hassle probably comes from harass + hustle; first recorded as a noun (meaning "argument") in 1945. Take a gander at the List of words having different meanings in British and American English (a spin-off of this article), where I often try to slot in historical/usage notes whenever I find them useful; pay a visit to the talk page as well. --JackLumber 20:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I'll delete the paragraph in question, then. Incidentally, haitch is a regional thing. It's the standard pronunciation in Hiberno-English, for instance, and I suspect also in some parts of Britain. Does the different Am/Brit pronunciation of herb get mentioned in any Wikipedia article, I wonder... Snalwibma 23:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Affirmative. In American and British English pronunciation differences.--JackLumber 12:52, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


 * haitch may be "standard pronuciation" among people with a certain accent but it is just as wrong as far as "correct" English is concerned as those accents which drop aitches (e.g. "'enry 'iggins") is for some other accents. There's no friggin H at the begining of "aitch" and "haitch" does not appear in the dictionary. Some people of Afro-Caribbean ancestry pronounce the word ask as aks. That's also wrong. Jooler 10:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

The Oxfordshire accent used to pronounce ask as aks, too, (and perhaps still does.) Flora Thompson in her depiction of late nineteenth and early twentieth century life in rural Oxfordshire records this pronunciation. For example, in "Still Glides The Stream" she writes: "The man smiled good-naturedly. 'Ah! now you're axing me summat,' he said... 'He'd got a better and bigger place at t'other end o' th' village and had put some of his workfolks into th' old un.'"

From the spelling, it's clear that she's trying to represent the pronunciation of the accent and "axing" shows that the "s" and "k" of "ask were reversed. It would be interesting to know whether the accent was taken to the Caribbean from England or whether it evolved there separately. Adrian Robson 08:54, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The correct spelling (and pronunciation) of the letter is indeed 'aitch'. If an H at the beginning of a word is not voiced, then 'an' is fine (hence 'an hour'), but otherwise, it should be prefaced with 'a'. 'An hotel' just sounds stupid; almost as bad as when people pronounce 'wheel' as 'hweel'.--Jeffro77 12:09, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The word hotel is of French origin and in French is pronounced "'otél". In English we defer to the French pronuciation when preceeding it with the indefinite article and it should be properly pronounced "an 'otél". This applies to most words beginning with H that are of French origin, but it does not apply to words that are not of French origin like "Horse". "an 'orse" and "A horse" ("an horse") are both wrong; "a horse" is correct. Jooler 12:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It is incorrect to categorically say that English speakers properly pronounce 'hotel' as 'otel' regardless of the French pronunciation. The proper Australian pronunciation is 'hotel'. Not sure why you said that "A horse" is wrong, and then said that "a horse" is correct, unless you were making an unsolicted point about proper capitalisation.--Jeffro77 12:51, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Corrected my error regarding horse, I mean to write "an horse". Historic is also of French origin and so one should say "an historic achievement" (an 'istoric achievement) rather than "a historic achievement". The rule about words of French origin is why Americans tend to say "'erb" (herb), but this has fallen out of usage elsewhere. Jooler 14:13, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It is flawed reasoning to state that 'h' should be silent in 'horse' or 'historic' simply because it is silent in the original French words... unless you also pronounce 'chance' as 'shon(t)s', and 'biscuit' as 'bis-kwee'. In most dialects of English, it is simply lazy speech to say 'orse', and the pronunciation key in English dictionaries indicates that the 'h' is not silent; therefore 'a horse' is correct, and 'an horse' is not.--Jeffro77 07:42, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Who said that pronouncing "wheel" as "hweel" sounds stupid? That just ain't true. Once upon a time, all words beginning with wh were actually spelled hw because they were always pronounced as such. Then came about the whine-wine merger, but a not negligible number of U.S. customers (including me, sometimes...) still voice h's in that position—although this is obsolescing, as much as the distinction between for and four. And the word "hotel" has become completely anglicized, as it's been around for kind of 230 years, so there's no need to drop the h. "Herb" is not really of French origin, but rather Anglo-French. Factoring in etymology every time you have to pronounce a word is pointlessly shooting yourself in the foot... --JackLumber 19:19, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Hwat hwas I thinking? Forsooth, ye shew me thine error. Me eateth mine words, sirree. Though 'hw' was correct in times past, it has become completely obsolete, and sounds effected in most modern English dialects.--Jeffro77 07:42, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Maybe "most" modern English speakers no longer distinguish between watt and what (etc), but many do. It is certainly NOT "completely obsolete". See below... Snalwibma 07:59, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I could have qualified the sentence a bit better. In most English dialects, the usage is completely obsolete. In some English dialects, it is not obsolete.--Jeffro77 08:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * As a speaker of Somerset-Yorkshire-Scotto-Hiberno-English (maybe we should have a Wikipedia article on that one) I can assure you that there is no question of wine and whine sounding the same (or tasting the same)! Likewise poor and paw, which sound much the same in that weird version of English known as Received Pronunciation (but let's not go there...) And (Jooler and Jeffro77) - you want to be careful about high-handedly dismissing haitch as "wrong". It's standard (and correct) Hiberno-English! And, furthermore, it is "in the dictionary". Check it out in Dolan's Dictionary of Hiberno-English (Gill & Macmillan, 1998). Snalwibma 21:17, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * poor vs. paw is the funnest. While the Received Standard merges "poor" and "paw," in many varieties of American English these two words are WAY far apart. In such dialects, poor has the vowel of foot (as for most speakers; the r is—needless to say—voiced) and paw rhymes with la (the musical tone in solmization). Ahsome, huh? --JackLumber 21:52, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * And just FYI, for many Americans watt & what wouldn't be the same anyway, regardless of the "h"—many (if not most) U.S. utterances of the word "what" rhyme with "butt" rather than "watt"...--JackLumber 14:05, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Interestingly, the poor/paw merger is not found in many other accents than RP (or RS). Most other places either have "poo-r" and "por" (poor/paw) or "po-er" and "por" (poor/paw), and any of the poors could have voiced Rs. I imagine some places they both could sound like "po" and others both like "por". Add to this the word "pour" and it could get really complicated ;) -- Boothman 16:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)