pronunciation of "room"

Nancy   Sat Oct 22, 2005 4:09 am GMT
I was recently listening to a cassette from a British ESL learning programme called "Linguarama". It dates back to 1978. On one of the cassettes the male speaker (who sounds rather upper-RPish) pronounces the word 'room' with a vowel that sounds more like the 'foot' vowel than like the 'goose' vowel. Does such a pronunciation fall within mainstream RP? (JC Wells mentions that even within mainstream RP there are some words which can be pronounced in more than one way depending on the age and idiosincracy of the speaker). Is that the case here or is his pronunciation of the word 'room' the way it's pronounced in upper-RP? It might even be a case of the speaker having "slipped up".

I've also noticed that his pronunciation of the 'lot' vowel does not sound like the short 'o' which is used in modern RP. It sounds almost like the way it is pronounced in General American. What's the deal with that?

Can anyone expalin these two interesting "phenomena" I have just mentioned? Thank you.
Uriel   Sat Oct 22, 2005 4:15 am GMT
I say room to rhyme with boom, but I've heard other Americans use the "foot" vowel instead, so I don't know that it's necessarily a feature of RP.
Heehee   Sat Oct 22, 2005 4:25 am GMT
Hmm, I've never given it a thought, but now that I think of it, the pronunciation of "room" with the "foot" vowel is actually quite common. I've heard Americans use it too.
Lazar   Sat Oct 22, 2005 4:32 am GMT
I always pronounce "room" with the "goose" vowel. Both pronunciations can occur in RP (see here http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?dict=CALD&key=68558&ph=on for instance).

As for his "lot" vowel, I honestly can't tell you anything. I haven't read anything about that RP vowel undergoing evolution in recent decades.
Travis   Sat Oct 22, 2005 8:44 am GMT
Heh, I haven't even heard of "room" being pronounced with [U] rather than [u] until right now, unlike words like "roof" and "root", which I'm used to having them alternate between [u] and [U], to the point that the two are practically interchangeable in at least the dialect here (even though I do tend to still favor [u] for them, especially for "root").
Heehee   Sat Oct 22, 2005 10:25 am GMT
Hmm, Travis...

How strange, I pronounce "room" with [u] and "root" with [U].

Maybe it's because of my "overseas international school" education= mix and match English accents!! Haha.
Lazar   Sat Oct 22, 2005 7:02 pm GMT
<<Heh, I haven't even heard of "room" being pronounced with [U] rather than [u] until right now, unlike words like "roof" and "root", which I'm used to having them alternate between [u] and [U], to the point that the two are practically interchangeable in at least the dialect here (even though I do tend to still favor [u] for them, especially for "root").>>

I've heard of "roof" being pronounced as [r\Uf], but I've never actually heard of "root" being pronounced as [r\Ut]. I only ever use [u] in those words. Using [U] in "roof", and especially in "root", would sound a bit odd in the dialect here.
Nancy   Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:46 am GMT
This same male RP speaker on the ESL cassette mentioned in my original message pronounces the word "generally" as a 4-syllable word with the stress falling on the SECOND syllable. However, the female speaker on this same ESL cassette replies to his question using a different pronunciation (4 syllables but accent falls on FIRST syllable). Now, I always thought that "generally" in RP was supposed to be pronounced as a THREE syllable word with the stress on the FIRST syllable. Why are the two speakers on the same ESL audiotape each using a different pronunciation of the same word (and in the same conversation to boot) and where did I get the idea that "generally" is a 3-syllable word? Can someone out there PLEASE clear this up? Thank you.
Mxsmanic   Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:55 am GMT
Maybe you need a more reliable source of audio samples.

I've never heard stress on the second syllable for generally, irrespective of the number of syllables pronounced. In ordinary speech it often sounds as if it has only three syllables, though (sometimes it does), because the second syllable receives so _little_ stress. I find myself pronouncing it with both three and four syllables, but with three syllables a lot more often than with four. I have to be speaking very deliberately to get four syllables out of it.
Rick Johnson   Sun Oct 23, 2005 11:04 am GMT
Some English people sound "room" so it sounds closer to "rum". As mentioned by others, I've heard some Americans talking about their "ruff" when they are referring to their "roof".
Kirk   Sun Oct 23, 2005 10:06 pm GMT
My pronunciations for these words:

"roof" [r\Mf]
"room" [r\Mm]
"root" [r\Mt]
"food" [f\M:d]
"foot" [fUt]
"book" [bUk]

[M] is an unrounded high back vowel. My vowel there is actually somewhat fronted, so it's in between [1] and [M], but I just use [M]. It's certainly not [u], which is a high back rounded vowel. I'm from California.