Four/For/Far

I read in a post that was posted a few months ago that some Americans pronounce for and far the same. Until now I've never heard of this. I always thought for and four were the same. But maybe I say it wrong, since apparently I pronounce sorry incorrectly (I say sore-ee).

In most of the U.S., people pronounce 'for' the same as 'four' but there is a strip on the East Coast running from around Baltimore, and Washington D.C. up to New York, maybe a little further, that might pronounce it like 'far'. I've heared people from this area pronounce words like horrible, Zorro and Florida as harrible, zarro and Flarida. However, I'm not sure that the pronunciation is consistant. For instance, I've never heard anyone say "farget" for 'forget'.

I think the underlying phonological rule for changing the "or" sound to the "ar" sound is that it only happens when the "r" is intervocalic. So, for example, like Brennus said, there are some people on the East Coast that use "ar" for words like "orange" "horrible" "Florida", because it's in between vowels...however, as far as I know, "ore" "whore" and "floor" are pronounced as "or" there as in other places, which is phonetically [o:r] (refer to antimoon's pronunciation guide to see IPA equivalent).

This all gets kind of complicated, because even tho this process happens to all words in that phonological context in some East Coast regions, the rest of America (besides the Northern Cities) pronounces a select very few words like "sorry" and the "-orrow" words as "ar", while all other words in that context get [o:r]. Thus, as in my speech:

sorry [ar]
tomorrow [ar]
borrow [ar]

horrible [o:r]
Florida [o:r]
orange [o:r]
etc.

Why is it this way? Not sure...anyone know the historical processes that led to many dialects saying [sari] and [baroU] but [ho:ribl] and [flo:rid..]?

And, Nic, you're not pronouncing "sorry" in a "wrong" way by using [o:r] instead of [ar]...it's just a dialectal difference.

I second what Kirk said. We all speak in dialect. Kirk and I say "sorry" with [ar]. You say say "sorry" with an [o:r]. Neither is wrong or right. They just are the way they are.

BTW, I pronounce all the words you listed the same as you. Where did you grow up Kirk? (I'm from Miami, FL)

I lived for a few years in Washington state, then several in the Dallas metro area in Texas. I've lived in California since my family moved here ten years ago when I was 11...also, both of my parents are California natives (from San Jose) so that obviously had a big effect on my speech as a little kid even when I wasn't living in California. So, Miami? I'd like to go there someday...never have made it over to Florida!

San Jose?! That's five minutes from me! It's funny the two opposite ends of the country (Miami [can't talk for Northern Florida - they sound more Southern - ok, that was weird since they are NORTH of me, but it's true] and California) sound so alike, yet Minnesota, which is technically closer to Florida, sounds so different.

Both California and (southern) Florida have a lot of immigrants from the Northeast, Midwest, and Hispanic countries. Therefore their speech is similar. As far as Minnesota (which was mostly settled by direct-from-the-Mother-country Germans and Scandinavians), I'm still convinced that I sound the same as people in both Florida and California (I been to both enough to have an idea) except with the [ar]/[o:r] difference and soda/pop.

Well, I can tell you my opinion on the differences between NE and CA accents. I recently met a person that was from Milwaukee. They sounded no different in their pronunciation of words; other than "sorry", of course. They said "sore-ee" instead.

''I think the underlying phonological rule for changing the "or" sound to the "ar" sound is that it only happens when the "r" is intervocalic. So, for example, like Brennus said, there are some people on the East Coast that use "ar" for words like "orange" "horrible" "Florida", because it's in between vowels...however, as far as I know, "ore" "whore" and "floor" are pronounced as "or" there as in other places, which is phonetically [o:r] (refer to antimoon's pronunciation guide to see IPA equivalent).''

There's an exception to the change from ''or'' to ''ar'' when the ''r'' is intervocalic accents, In those accents ''story'' is still pronounced ''store-ee'' [sto:ri:] not ''starry'' [sta:ri:] regardless of the fact that the r-combination is between a vowel in that word. The word ''story'' is an exception.