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Sterkarm! Arm! Arm!

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"I've got ask -- how do you pronounce the name 'Per'?

I've been asked that a lot! People also seem to think that I made it up. I didn't. It's the northern version of 'Peter.'

I sometimes tell people to pronounce it 'Pear.' But you could also try imagining that you're a Geordie and are saying 'Peter' while choking off or skipping over the 't' in the middle -- 'Pay-er.'

And while we're on the subject, I'm often asked about 'Sterkarm' too. You can say it, 'Stark-arm.' But the Sterkarms would have pronounced it something like: Shtair-r-r-ck--air-r-rm. Roll those 'r's!"


www.susanpriceauthor.com

An Interview with Susan Price

Award winning author Susan Price is interviewed about her book The Sterkarm Handshake.
www.susanpriceauthor.com
 
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zinniabooklover said:
"I've got ask -- how do you pronounce the name 'Per'?

I've been asked that a lot! People also seem to think that I made it up. I didn't. It's the northern version of 'Peter.'

I sometimes tell people to pronounce it 'Pear.' But you could also try imagining that you're a Geordie and are saying 'Peter' while choking off or skipping over the 't' in the middle -- 'Pay-er.'

And while we're on the subject, I'm often asked about 'Sterkarm' too. You can say it, 'Stark-arm.' But the Sterkarms would have pronounced it something like: Shtair-r-r-ck--air-r-rm. Roll those 'r's!"


www.susanpriceauthor.com

An Interview with Susan Price

Award winning author Susan Price is interviewed about her book The Sterkarm Handshake.
www.susanpriceauthor.com
Click to expand...
Nice. I think the greatest challenge for English natives are to do with the vowels.
 
Agonum said:
Nice. I think the greatest challenge for English natives are to do with the vowels.
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As per (!), I'm very tired but ... I'm at a loss to understand this. Native English speakers - why would they be having problems with vowels? Middle class people, with their diluted RP speech, do have problems understanding anything said by Midlanders or Northerners. Middle class peeps are notorious for struggling with anything outside of their 'boarding school' accents.

Just to be clear - I am exaggerating this slightly, in order to make my point. Obviously, not all middle class people have been to boarding school. That's a given. (Y'know, in case anyone out there is getting all indignant about this). And not all middle class people struggle to understand regional accents. But I'm not exaggerating this by much. Bc this does happen. All the time. People even talk about 'Northern vowels' in a way that seems to suggest that the (mostly Southern) middle class way of pronouncing vowels is the default pronunciation.

Anyway, I'm not trying to start a class war here or get into heavy linguistics. I'm just genuinely baffled.

I'm also not convinced by Susan Price's suggestion that a Geordie would pronounce Per as Pay - er. They would drop the 't'. Lots of British people would. But the actual pronunciation wouldn't change that much, imo. Pee - er. I can't write it properly and I don't use IPA. But dropping the 't' wouldn't change the vowel sound, imo. It's like 'water'. A Geordie would drop the 't' whereas someone from Lancashire wouldn't.

This is turning into a bleedin' essay! It stops here! :ROFLMAO:

EDIT - What am I missing? What am I not understanding? o_O
 
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zinniabooklover said:
As per (!), I'm very tired but ... I'm at a loss to understand this. Native English speakers - why would they be having problems with vowels? Middle class people, with their diluted RP speech, do have problems understanding anything said by Midlanders or Northerners. Middle class peeps are notorious for struggling with anything outside of their 'boarding school' accents.

Just to be clear - I am exaggerating this slightly, in order to make my point. Obviously, not all middle class people have been to boarding school. That's a given. (Y'know, in case anyone out there is getting all indignant about this). And not all middle class people struggle to understand regional accents. But I'm not exaggerating this by much. Bc this does happen. All the time. People even talk about 'Northern vowels' in a way that seems to suggest that the (mostly Southern) middle class way of pronouncing vowels is the default pronunciation.

Anyway, I'm not trying to start a class war here or get into heavy linguistics. I'm just genuinely baffled.

I'm also not convinced by Susan Price's suggestion that a Geordie would pronounce Per as Pay - er. They would drop the 't'. Lots of British people would. But the actual pronunciation wouldn't change that much, imo. Pee - er. I can't write it properly and I don't use IPA. But dropping the 't' wouldn't change the vowel sound, imo. It's like 'water'. A Geordie would drop the 't' whereas someone from Lancashire wouldn't.

This is turning into a bleedin' essay! It stops here! :ROFLMAO:

EDIT - What am I missing? What am I not understanding? o_O
Click to expand...
Pee - er? 🤔 But that is a very strange enunciation of the name.

I hear you regarding the northern accents, and I thought about that, too. I guess my comment is mostly to do with the southerners.

Furthermore, my comment has little to do with ‘Per’—which I don’t think is too challenging for Brits outside of maybe the rolling ‘r’—but is about ‘Sterkarm.’ That ‘a’ in ‘-arm’ is very open, even more so than the initial vowel in for example ‘under;’ that’s why I wrote what I wrote, because I could picture before me a Brit struggling with it.

Having said that, now that I think about it some more, it might actually be the rolling ‘r’ that indeed is the real challenge. And again, I guess the northern accents won’t find it as hard if at all.
 
More fool me, keeping this convo going. Should've left well alone, lol.

Agonum said:
Pee - er? 🤔 But that is a very strange enunciation of the name.
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It really isn't. Plus, the 't' isn't left out completely but I don't know how to explain it. There is a sort of residue of the plosive sound, if I can put it like that.

Peter or water without the 't' are quite similar. I've tried finding examples online and this one is the best I can come up with. It's not great but it'll have to do. At approx 20s she says 'water' how a Geordie would say it (kind of ... more or less). The subtitles have it as Jordy! 🙄


Agonum said:
I hear you regarding the northern accents, and I thought about that, too. I guess my comment is mostly to do with the southerners.
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The Southern thing (aka middle class thing) does tend to dominate conversations about accent and pronunciation and vocab in the UK. It's frustrating. I think it's left over from RP thing. It's easy to characterise this as being about Southerners / middle class. I need to remember that lots of southerners in the UK don't have diluted RP accents. Bristolians don't. People from Somerset, Devon, Dorset, Cornwall, Suffolk etc all have soft but distinct accents.

Agonum said:
Furthermore, my comment has little to do with ‘Per’—which I don’t think is too challenging for Brits outside of maybe the rolling ‘r’—but is about ‘Sterkarm.’ That ‘a’ in ‘-arm’ is very open, even more so than the initial vowel in for example ‘under;’ that’s why I wrote what I wrote, because I could picture before me a Brit struggling with it.
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Us British do struggle with 'r' sounds when they have to be really strong or accentuated. I think Scottish people probably have an easier time of it.

Agonum said:
Having said that, now that I think about it some more, it might actually be the rolling ‘r’ that indeed is the real challenge. And again, I guess the northern accents won’t find it as hard if at all.
Click to expand...
A rolling 'r' is difficult for any British person (Scots excepted, I think). North, South, doesn't matter. We are just crap at them.

Actually, you have just reminded me of something I read recently. Hang on ...

 
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zinniabooklover said:
More fool me, keeping this convo going. Should've left well alone, lol.


It really isn't. Plus, the 't' isn't left out completely but I don't know how to explain it. There is a sort of residue of the plosive sound, if I can put it like that.

Peter or water without the 't' are quite similar. I've tried finding examples online and this one is the best I can come up with. It's not great but it'll have to do. At approx 20s she says 'water' how a Geordie would say it (more or less). Tik Tok has it in the subtitles as Jordy! 🙄



The Southern thing (aka middle class thing) does tend to dominate conversations about accent and pronunciation and vocab in the UK. It's frustrating. I think it's left over from RP thing. It's easy to characterise this as being about Southerners / middle class. I need to remember that lots of southerners in the UK don't have diluted RP accents. Bristolians don't. People from Somerset, Devon, Dorset, Cornwall, Suffolk etc all have soft but distinct accents.


Us British do struggle with 'r' sounds when they have to be really strong or accentuated. I think Scottish people probably have an easier time of it.


A rolling 'r' is difficult for any British person (Scots excepted, I think). North, South, doesn't matter. We are just crap at them.

Actually, you have just reminded me of something I read recently. Hang on ...

Click to expand...
The glottal stop. I love it. Also notably in “see you later;” I’ll refrain from using IPA, but ʔ is how it’s notated there.

The name ‘Per’ doesn’t have the long ‘i’ like the one you have in English ‘Peter.’ Its vowel is rather the same as in ‘air.’ That’s why I said what I said about the vowel posing difficulties, because I envisioned you wanting to have it with the long ‘i.’ But if you do it like that: P ＋ ‘air’ － ‘r’ ＋ [rolling ‘r’] ＝ proper enunciation of the name Per. The vowel in and of itself shouldn’t be a problem; you just need to know the premise.
 
(First time using that emoji that Zinnia taught me, by the way! 😱)
 
Agonum said:
The glottal stop. I love it. Also notably in “see you later;” I’ll refrain from using IPA, but ʔ is how it’s notated there.

The name ‘Per’ doesn’t have the long ‘i’ like the one you have in English ‘Peter.’ Its vowel is rather the same as in ‘air.’ That’s why I said what I said about the vowel posing difficulties, because I envisioned you wanting to have it with the long ‘i.’ But if you do it like that: P ＋ ‘air’ － ‘r’ ＋ [rolling ‘r’] ＝ proper enunciation of the name Per. The vowel in and of itself shouldn’t be a problem; you just need to know the premise.
Click to expand...
Right now I'm tempted to say Per can rot in hell for all I care but I suspect this isn't the response you were looking for. I will cease and desist, lol.

Why are all the YT Glasgow accent vids so long? Rhetorical question. It's just annoying.
 
Peter Capaldi has an accent on fire. Scottish, I think?
 
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