Pronunciation

There are many regional variations in the pronunciation of words in English. This makes our language very rich. Much is to do with pronunciation of vowels. For example, one does not have to travel very far north before one hears the word 'castle' being pronounced with a short 'a' sound. In the south, one is more likely to hear the long 'a' sound.

What is a little more difficult to take is the conversion of single, pure vowels into ugly diphthongs - e.g. 'cake' sounding like 'ca-eek'. Even worse is the laziness of speech where letters, which should be pronounced, are left out. That is a particular problem in this region of the South-East - e.g. "bottle" becomes "bo'all"; "house" becomes "'ouse"; "aggravate" becomes "aggravaye".

Nowadays, there is an increasing tendency, possibly as the result of watching too many Hollywood Movies, to adopt American pronunciations. We should try to retain English forms. Frequent culprits are the words "harass" and "harassment". The American pronunciation places the stress on the second syllable - harass. The proper English pronunciation places the stress on the first syllable - "harass." However, when even BBC newsreaders make the same mistake (or chose to ignore the English form), it makes it difficult to persuade others. We even hear people referring to "advertisements" rather than "advertisements" (with the stress on the third rather than the second syllable).