Study: American Pronunciations of English Words Not Thriving in the British Isles

A study by the British Library revealed that despite concerns to the contrary, Britons have not begun adopting the American pronunciation for English words. In fact, British English is changing at a faster rate than American English. Jonnie Robinson, one of the researchers, said:

‘In fact, in some cases it is the other way around. British English, for whatever reason, is innovating and changing while American English remains very conservative and traditional in its speech patterns.’


Here's how Robinson and his colleagues conducted the study of 10,000 English speakers:

The volunteers were asked to read extracts from Mr Tickle, one of the series of Mr Men books by Roger Hargreaves.

They were also asked to pronounce a set of six different words which included ‘controversy’, ‘garage’, ‘scone’, ‘neither’, ‘attitude’ and ‘schedule’.

Linguists then examined the recordings made by 60 of the British and Irish participants and 60 of their counterparts from the U.S. and Canada.


Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Image: Daily Mail

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The area around central Iowa pronounces "roof" like "ruff". They also say "crick" instead of "creek". But then again, living in the Deep south I hear "oil" and "all" pronounced exactly the same by the older generation.
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Oof, I just remembered!

Dean Johnson from HomeTime calls a rOOf a ruff.

-I think he's from Wusskaahhnsn, though.

Still chuckle at the way Southerners pronounce Syrup ('surrrp') + other things, though hahaha ...
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As someone who grew up in the South, I can also say that I have never heard anyone call a roof a ruff. However, there is a common pronunciation that is somewhere in between the two. It would be like the vowel sound in "took."
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