The English and words that end in 'a'

[Craig 930 RS]

A serious question - why do people from the UK pronounce words such as 'Honda' - and they sound like 'HondER'? Seems as if it ends in 'a' it comes out 'er' -

Must be a reason or a name for this.

[gaijindabe]

For the same reason we pronounce it as "Han-da" in the USA.

In Japanese it is more of a "Hon-da".

[Craig 930 RS]

This is different.
When speaking, UK adds an 'er' to *all* words ending in 'a'.

[gaijindabe]

Accents come from all over... In the UK, it can be a matter of class or geography. For a little country, it is amazing how many there are. Drive over a county line and folks can speak quite differently. Via media, we only hear the more poplular ones here, like the good old "cockneys" and the BBC standard.

Now you realise Craig, they think we sound funny, and they might be right. It is the English lanuage we are talking about..

[Craig 930 RS]

Yeah, I've noticed that nearly all accents and classes of UKers do this.
I'd be curious to hear a Brit comment on this.

They think we talk odd too. Ever hear a Brit imitate a westener?
Stilted, choppy, deep and slang filled seems to their impression.

[Britwrench]

There is a wide variety of English (not counting Welsh, Scottish and Irish accents) dialects. They do vary from town to town, or village to village and that's they way it's been. There is a big difference from the south of England to the Midlands (industrial center of the UK). Honda is spoken as Honder, because no-one I know anywhere says anything else. The English do not emphasise the "Z" in Mazda, more like Massda. that's the way it is, two seperate countries speaking the same, or at least nearly the same, language.

[strath44]

Well first thing Craig thanks for referring to us a being from the UK and not just England!
I would personally agree with gaijindabe as it is certainly a class and geographical tick and not a generalization. All I can suggest is that you change your company. I personally wouldn't associate with anyone that has a Honder anyway unless it is a work or wives car as they are generally subject to ricing!

[djmcmath]

Hey, easy on the Honder comments. I'll dump 'er when she stops running, but not a day earlier!

[ronin]

and from the way she ran the last time I saw her, that just might be a while

[M.D. Holloway]

I have a pretty thick NE accent, my wife is midwestern, we live in Texas. My 5yr old son is in K-grade. Needless to say, he has a rather interesting way of speaking - a blend of southern twang and beantown babble - and he talks way to fast. The teacher recommended speech work for him. The lingusit (sp) interviewed him and then talked to us - needless to say after I started to talk she said "I have seen this sort of thing before - we call it the yankee influence."

[86 911]

In Europe, why do people describe Mercedes Benz as a "Brabus"? If you do a Google search for Brabus, you will find only Mercedes cars, and usually the sites have a European URL.

[ronin]

Brabus is a Mercedes tuner and car manufacturer

[Willem Fick]

Nooo, Brabus is THE Mercedes tuner....

I'm from South Africa, where we speak our own flavour of English (apparantly we sound like Australians to Americans).

A couple of years ago, my dad and I landed up in Glasgow Scotland after being redirected there due to heavy snowfall.

Asking for directions to Edinbugh was an absolute nightmare - both myself and the poor chap trying to give me directions were speaking "Queens" English, yet had to resort to some hysterical form of sign language and pointing at maps, as we simply couldn't understand each other.

Must say, despite language differences, I found the Scots a great bunch, yet I still crack up with laughter whenever I think of;

"Yerrrr naught from these poarrrrts then arrre ye lad...? "

Cheers!

Willem Fick

[Rufblackbird]

Originally posted by Willem Fick
Nooo, Brabus is THE Mercedes tuner....

Very true...they'd give AMG a hard run for the money.

But to comment on the japanese car mfgs...I've never heard of a "Han-da" or a "Masssda." But then again that's probably due to the fact that we've got a lot of Japanese in our culture and population, so those of us in Hawaii actually say it the right way.

As for the topic of discussion? I have no idea

[rob justice]

"A serious question - why do people from the UK pronounce words such as 'Honda' - and they sound like 'HondER'? Seems as if it ends in 'a' it comes out 'er' "

Sorry - but I never heard of it prounced with an 'er', its Honda over here.

[Mule]

And to top it off every channel thinks they need one of these guys to call any road race. The twit I heard this weekend said HAAWNDER, which while annoying as hell doesn't grate on me nearly as bad as CAARE.

[tiggy]

First translation lesson !!!!!

[Zeke]

No one has brougt up that New Englanders say. "idear"? Yet, they don't sound like Brits to me......

I think David Hobbs is the only one that says Honder.

BTW, one can trace the various Southern USA accents to distinct counties of England. Don't make me go get my old college paper out to prove it.

[M.D. Holloway]

There was a time I could tell you which New England state someone came from just by listening to them for a few minutes. RI is dif than Mass - VT then NH, Maine is all by itself. Connecticut is the tough one. It can be a NY/NJ style or Mass.

[djmcmath]

I've spent time in states on most of the East Coast. When you live in a place for a few months, and ask people about their accents regularly, you can figure it out pretty quick. There was a time when I could guess a sothern person's birthplace within a few hundred miles after only 10-15 minutes of conversation. Of course, some of that was creatively trying to get them to say a particular word or expression without them catching on to what you were up to. lol