Meet the Fockers.
As many of you know, this is the title of an American film. Is Fockers pronounced the same as 'fu*kers' in American? To Australians, it sounds slightly longer than 'fu*kers' or a bit shorter than 'fahckers', but the same vowel as both if you know what I mean.
No, it doesn't sound the same.
No, but it's used in a way throughout the movie that you know it could be interchanged with the actual word, like "I hate those Fockers" and so on.
It's just a funny play on words. I loved that movie.
Yes, the puns reinforced it, that's why I asked about the American pronunciation. It could be extended to other 'o' words, such as 'cop' and 'lock' which sound to me like 'cahp' or 'cup', 'lahk' or 'luck' and so on, when pronounced by Americans.
It's not exatcly the same, but it's almost the same. Especially here in New York. I remember the first time I heard about it on the news and I was like "what did they just say?!" :-)
It's not the same, but it's close enough to make me think of that word, even though I never saw the movie.
I think the same goes for Fokker, the aeroplane manufacturer. Even if, as I know, it is a Dutch company, I wonder if they are ever embarrassed about that? ;-)
I don't think so, because they spelled the name Focker, which is a much rarer form of spelling that name. Universal did this promotion for people with that name to celebrate a "family reunion" at Universal Orlando, and not many people qualified!
Jenny,
I'm not sure what you're saying here. What's "fu*kers"? I guess you mean "fuckers". If so, then what do you mean by saying that "fockers" sounds slightly longer to Australians than "fuckers"? If it's an Aussie pronouncing them then they're going to sound about as long as each other.
They are similar in American pronunciation though. Close enough to make plays on words but the plays on words still work even in Aussie pronunciation even tough the vowels /o/ and /^/ are quite different in timbre.
Jim,
No, I meant funkers! at the risk of being censored. How could any other word possibly relate to this topic? Im talking about the American pronunciation of "fockers". If you're an Aussie don't you think it sounds like farkers?
Well I doubt the vowel /o/ exists in American English.
Why? Unless that is some special symbol that represents a certain pronunciation, we have the same vowels as you do if I'm not mistaken.
Here's the American pronunciation,
fockers-[fAk@`z]
fuckers-[fVk@`z]
farkers-[fAr\k@`z]
Jim, the American /^/ is not the same as the Australian /^/. In American /^/ is [V] in X-sampa
Tiffany,
The American pronunciation given above, fockers-[fAk@`z], farkers-[fAr\k@`z] sums up what I mean. The Australian pronunciation of 'o' (in 'cop', 'lock', 'cot') is common to most accents in the English speaking world but is absent in American English.