In the limeric thread, Bob asked me : "How do you pronounce 'prawn'."

The aw in prawn sounds like caught, or paw.

In born and scorn, the vowels sound like horse or course.

I know our pronunciations are different around the world, so this may not make any sense to you. But I can tell you, they do not rhyme here, and the fact that the r in prawn precedes the vowel sound, yet it follows the vowel sound in scorn or born, leads me to believe, it is more than just the vowel sound that changes its rhymability!

Now, how do you pronounce them?

With a sudden crisis of confidence I went scurrying for my dictionaries to check the phonetic spellings.

I've checked three dictionaries and all of them give the same information.
As I said before I don't know how to insert phonetic symbols here so I'll have to describe it.

The three words in question differ only in the initial consonant sound and so do rhyme.
However I have also checked it on-line in Merriam Webster and there 'prawn' is indeed given a slightly different pronunciation although their system of phonetic spellings isn't one with which I'm familiar.

Aha ! I've just located the web site for the Cambridge On-Line dictionary on my other session.
Here are the references

prawn

born

scorn

I pronounce the words in line with the phonetics shown for the UK. Like MW though it shows distinct pronunciations for the words in the US.

Edited to add

I've noticed that clicking on the links shows the page without the phonetics. Just click the 'show phonetics box', type the word back into the search field and click search. In the case of born and prawn you'll then need to click on the word in the list that is shown.

Bob

si hoc legere scis nimium eruditiones habes

Read all about my travels around the world here.

[This message was edited by BobHale on Thu Oct 3rd, 2002 at 9:26.]

[This message was edited by BobHale on Thu Oct 3rd, 2002 at 9:47.]

Out of curiosity I've looked up the other words in your example: caught, paw, horse and course in standard UK English all have the same vowel sound. Of course they don't rhyme because they have different terminating consonants.

In the UK paw, pour and pore are homophones.

si hoc legere scis nimium eruditiones habes

Read all about my travels around the world here.

Bob, I want you to know, I am finding this absolutely fascinating!

Now...to quote you: "In the UK paw, pour and pore are homophones." Does this mean you don't pronounce the r in the latter two? Here, pour and pore are homophones, but paw has a totally different sound to the vowel, and has no "r".

Now, if you go here and press on the little speaker symbol after the word "pronunciation", you can hear what it sounds like when I say born. Likewise, this page will give you the American proununciation of prawn. Gee...would love to talk to you on the phone sometime!

quote:

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Originally posted by Angel:
Does this mean you don't pronounce the 'r' in the latter two?

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Sort of.
In speech when words end with a letter 'r' it's almost always either very short or non-existent. Some accents - for example the various Scottish ones - do pronounce it prominently (like a Spannish 'rr' in fact) but for the most part it does tend to disappear.
In fact now that I come to think of it, it often disappears in the middle of words too. For example I wouldn't articulate the 'r' in "sort of". I've just tried saying it out loud and although I can do it I find it quite hard to deliberately make the 'r' sound audible in these words.

si hoc legere scis nimium eruditiones habes

Read all about my travels around the world here.

If "born", "scorn" and "prawn" rhyme as you pronounce them, is there any of sound distinction between "prawn" and "porn"?

quote:

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Originally posted by Hic et ubique:
If "born", "scorn" and "prawn" rhyme as you pronounce them, is there any of sound distinction between "prawn" and _"porn"?_

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Only at the start of the words the 'pr' and 'p'.

There isn't a distinction between 'porn' and 'pawn' though.

si hoc legere scis nimium eruditiones habes

Read all about my travels around the world here.

Quote

"In the UK paw, pour and pore are homophones"

Whe I was in primary school (I would have been around nine years old) we had an English lesson where the teacher challenged us to come of with homophones.

One lad suggested "Paw", "pour" and "poor" and was roundly castigated by the teacher who then went on to pronounce each word with heavily emphasied differences. I thought then, and think now half a century later, that she was committing the sin of trying to be a "clever dick" at the expense of her pupils. The lesson I did learn, and practise to this day when I run training sessions, is never to put your pupils or trainees down. If correction is necessary, then praise the effort first and then discuss the possibility of error and possible better solutions.

All learning is more effective when reinforced by praise than when corrected by punishment.

Richard English