I am on the east coast, and, as always, I am enamored with their accents. When the speaker announced where the bathrooms were, she pointed and said they're in the "hall." My first reaction was that she said "hole," and I even went so far as to think, "Oh, they must be bad." Then I realized.

But my favorite is "water." I've decided that for one 2-syllable-only word, that word must have the most going on with an Eastern (and perhaps English) accent than any other. First there is the "a" that has a bit of an "r" in it. Then the "t" that slides, ever so subtly, to a "d." Then the climax...the ending "r," which this time stays an "a." I could listen to this accent all day.

Where are you on the East Coast? NYC? Here in the Philadelphia region, the true natives pronounce it "wuerter!"

WM

In Rhode Island, we call it Evian.

Here in soggy Oregon we don't call it - it shows up uninvited from above.

Water can be a good drink, provided it's diluted with around 5% of alcohol.

Sounds like NYC-area, Kalleh? To my ears, the Boston-area "water" sounds like wahttah (cf Bette Davis, wahttah dump)

I suppose natives of the Second City are too sophisticated, but my dad's family (from a part of Indiana not far away from Chicago) pronounces "washcloth"... "warshrag". (!)

Washrag? You must have been gentry. We generally just spit on our hands.

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Where are you on the East Coast?

I was in Concord, New Hampshire (just got back tonight). The problem is that some are there from New Jersey or New York or Boston, so the accent is all mixed up. No matter where they're from, though, people in the East seem to pronounce water very interestingly. Now I want to have a Wordcraft Gathering so that I can see how our English friends pronounce it.

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Now I want to have a Wordcraft Gathering so that I can see how our English friends pronounce it.

Nothing like the way most Americans pronounce it, I'm quite sure

I pronounce it with the first syllable using the British "OR" or "AW" sound, as in "sort" or "paw". But the problem is that American pronounce that combination more like we would say "ar" as in "lard". I don't believe that US English uses the British "or" sound.

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so that I can see how our English friends pronounce it.

That is variable and depends on our particicular dialect and ethnolect. IIRC there's a scene in My Fair Lady when Professor Higgins tries to teach Eliza how to pronounce "water" his (upper-class) way. Eliza's accent is, of course, a greatly-exaggerated cockney.

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Eliza's accent is, of course, a greatly-exaggerated cockney

Indeed - but the first syllable was still "or", even though the rest of the word, complete with glottal stop, was non-standard. Something like "wor'ah" as I recall.

Of course in my neck of the woods its

"wear-tah"