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Questions about English used in the United States and Canada, but usually not Mexico.

3 votes

Is hilarious pronounced /hɪˈlɛriəs/?

The difference between /ɪ/ and /ə/ in unaccented syllables is of very little importance in English. There are some people who use /ə/ instead of /ɪ/ in unaccented syllables (this is called the weak vo …
Peter Shor 's user avatar
12 votes

What are the names of the two phonetic changes in this sentence?

Changing vowels to schwas is called vowel reduction, and it's incredibly common for most English speakers (not just people from Michigan).
Peter Shor 's user avatar
2 votes

What is the local pronunciation of 'Chicago'?

In forvo, you can click on the speaker and find other words he's pronounced. For this speaker, his 'a' in Chicago seems very much like his 'o' in omelet and not that much like his 'a' in tax (which is …
Peter Shor 's user avatar
2 votes

The North American use of "gotten" in the Passive Perfect Tenses

If it was a choice between got and gotten in these sentences, the right choice is gotten. However, as the other comments and answers say, Americans would not use gotten for either of these sentences; …
Peter Shor 's user avatar
5 votes
Accepted

What does "consound" mean?

"Consound it" means the same thing as "confound it". My guess is that the interjection "confound it" was thought to be too strong in Hannibal, Missouri, at the time of Mark Twain's childhood. So peo …
Peter Shor 's user avatar
4 votes
Accepted

Were American, Australian, and New Zealand English dialects ever spoken in Britain before th...

Languages change. Otherwise, we'd still be speaking like Chaucer. The British settlement of America started in the 17th century; there has been lots of time since then for several different American d …
Peter Shor 's user avatar
2 votes

Are there any studies on changes in British English to become more like American English?

The flow of expressions between British and American English doesn't just go one way, although I expect today that the predominant direction is from the US to the UK. There is an English professor who …
Peter Shor 's user avatar
5 votes

American English Pronunciation of "o" sound long or short?

See the lot-cloth split section of Wikipedia. Here are two excerpts: The lengthening and raising generally happened before the fricatives /f/, /θ/ and /s/. In American English the raising was extende …
Peter Shor 's user avatar
45 votes
Accepted

Why does "corn" mean "maize" in American English?

When the English settlers landed in the New World, they didn't have a word for maize. Maize is a New World crop which was unknown in Europe. The word "maize" was originally Spanish, and comes from the …
Peter Shor 's user avatar
3 votes
Accepted

How common is the short "be" in American English

I believe the distinction between the phonemes /i/ and /iː/ is a British phenomenon; it doesn't exist in General American. In General American, the vowel /i/ may vary somewhat in length depending on h …
Peter Shor 's user avatar
6 votes

What does 'ten of six' mean in regard to time?

For the origins of "ten of six", searching Google books shortly after 1800, which is when this expression seems to have originated, I came across quite a few uses of expressions such as It wants t …
Peter Shor 's user avatar
20 votes
Accepted

Why is it called an “Indian file”?

Presumably because this is the way the settlers thought American Indians walked on trails through the forest. They probably did; if you have narrow trails, this is the only comfortable way to walk the …
Peter Shor 's user avatar