pronunciation of flower and flour

Cleveland   Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:38 pm GMT
are they they same? they are the same in my dictionary anyway...
M56   Tue Jul 31, 2007 10:22 pm GMT
Same, apart from one difference. Flower has two syllables
Travis   Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:11 pm GMT
The two are homophones here, being ["fM\a:oR=:]. However, when suffixes or postclitics are attached to them which start with vowels, the two behave differently. For instance, "floury" is pronounced ["fM\a:oRi:] here whereas "flowery" is pronounced ["fM\a:oR=:i:] here.

([ao] seems to be more accurate than [aU] for historical /aU/ here)
furrykef   Wed Aug 01, 2007 2:40 am GMT
I agree with M56, for once, though the difference can be pretty fuzzy. Pronouncing "flour" as one syllable is a bit difficult for me and it might come out as two sometimes.

That's not to say Travis is incorrect... sometimes words just vary from dialect to dialect.

- Kef
Travis   Wed Aug 01, 2007 3:45 am GMT
The thing is that here, "flour" and "flower" are not identical phonemically, being /flaor/ and /flao@r/ respectively. However, the thing is that /r/ is syllabicized in my dialect when it falls in a coda position after /aI/, /ao/, /OI/, and sometimes /i/; the thing, though, that if another vowel follows it, this does not happen.
Guest   Wed Aug 01, 2007 6:52 am GMT
<The two are homophones here, being ["fM\a:oR=:]. However, when suffixes or postclitics are attached to them which start with vowels, the two behave differently.>

Can you point us to a dictionary which shows them as homophones before anything is added?

And tell us if these dictionary entries are incorrect rearding the base forms of those words:

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=29835&dict=CALD
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=29855&dict=CALD
Travis   Wed Aug 01, 2007 7:24 am GMT
BTW, the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary does show those as homophones, except that for some reason it marks a syllable boundary for "flower" and none for "flour". It for some reason is representing North American speech that does not involve actual syllabicization of /r/ after /aU/ but rather the turning of /aUr/ into a rhoticized triphthong. The matter is that that is probably not actually accurate in describing most North American English dialects, which I seriously doubt actually have such triphthongs (as opposed to syllabicization of /r/) even though some transcriptions use them for whatever reason. One way or another, though, I really do not trust such dictionaries outside of providing general guidelines to learners, and one should not expect them to actually represent the forms present in actual dialects at all.

Note that those dictionary entries are fine for learners of English aside from the misleadingness of transcribing the realization of /aUr/ as a rhoticized triphthong; my transcription covers pronunciation details present in my dialect which one is probably not going to encounter if one is simply learning English (unless one for some reason ends up living in Wisconsin). As for the pronunciation specified by "floury" in such, that is just because it is supposing unconditional realization of /r/ as [@`] after /aU/, whereas my dialect only has syllabicization (as [R=]) where such /r/ falls in a coda position.
Cleveland   Wed Aug 01, 2007 9:08 pm GMT
I am sorry... firstly I have to say thank you all you guys/girls for your kindness, but all your answers are too "Jargon" for me, I just wanted to know when I speak with Flour and Flower if I should pronounce the same or I have to find the slightly different between them.
Skippy   Wed Aug 01, 2007 9:47 pm GMT
I pronounce them exactly the same... They are both "two syllables" unless you don't consider the 'r' vocalic.
furrykef   Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:21 am GMT
<< I am sorry... firstly I have to say thank you all you guys/girls for your kindness, but all your answers are too "Jargon" for me, I just wanted to know when I speak with Flour and Flower if I should pronounce the same or I have to find the slightly different between them. >>

Well, first learn to say "flower", with the distinct "w" sound in between them. Then learn to say it without that "w" sound, gliding smoothly from the "o" to the "r", and there you have "flour".

But, as the others pointed out, it's not pronounced that way in all dialects. Still, that's more or less the standard pronunciation and will be understood everywhere, although the listener might hear the two the same way if they're homonyms for the listener.

- Kef
Milton   Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:41 am GMT
For me:

flour has a diphthong
flower has two syllables
Guy   Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:43 am GMT
Kef,

I've never heard 'flower' pronounced with a distinct w sound. Are you sure it's the 'standard' pronunciation?
Milton   Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:51 am GMT
My pronunciation:

flour: flour

flower: flow.er

lawyer: lawy.er

liar: li.ar


(Some people in the South pronounce LAWYER as LIAR, their
lawyer is law.yer rather than lawy.er so it can be confused with li.ar)

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/flour