Re: Galveston

On 2025-03-24 14:15:10 +0000, Christian Weisgerber said:

On 2025-03-22, Ruud Harmsen <rh@rudhar.com> wrote:
 

This also reminds me of a discussion we had years ago, about Memphis
sounding like Memphus, in a song sung by Cher. Unthinkable in
South-Brit. The THIS and THUS vowels are always distinct there.

The city of Los Angeles is a case in point. Most British people pronounce the last syllable like "lees" /lɪjz/ (unless they've lived there). Most Californians pronounce it as "ləs" -- the whole name as /lə'sænd͡ʒləs/.
There can also be variations between neighbouring states. Californians usually pronounce the state of Oregon with "gone" as the last syllable, but that annoys some Oregonians, who say "gən" (confusingly, for British speakers, writing it as "gun").

 It's a bit more complicated, as Geoff Lindsey points out in
_English After RP_.  On the one hand, Standard Southern British has
replaced KIT with schwa in many words, e.g. the second vowel in
"foreign"

yes

 and "arbitrary"

no, not for me, unless by "second" you mean "third".

, and increasingly in the endings -et,
-est, -less, -ness, -red, -ress.  On the other hand, the distinction
itself is maintained and contrasts minimal pairs such as "teaches"
(KIT) and "teachers" (schwa), or "Lenin" and "Lennon".

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 38 years; mainly in England until 1987.