Concerning Andrew Billen's jibe at Marr's pronunciation of Gough Square: How exactly does the native population pronounce that name? We were recently in London visiting Dr Johnson's house, and I cannot remember hearing any strange sounding pronunciations of that place name by several guides. My New England instinct would be to go with Marr and call it "guff" but I always defer to locals about their own places. (I suppose this could rhyme with cough, cow, or coo, but I hope someone authoritative will speak up. I haven't been able to find the answer yet.)

i would have thought it was goff

I dunno, Guff Wheetlam has a certain ring about it...

There's a couple of towns in England, not too far from each other, both with a name spelled, IIRC, Hough. Again, IIRC, one is pronounced "huff" and the other "how".

How do you say 34-19 in New Zealandish Olly?

Hough, Crewe (link), and Thornton Hough, Wirril (link), in Cheshire, UK, are roughly 40 miles apart (link). Although there is also a Hough Nall, near Wilmslow that just under 30 miles from the former (link). I cannot find how any of them are pronounced, but, for what it's worth, the origin is from Old English hōh 'ridge or spur of land' (link).

How do you say 34-19 in New Zealandish Olly?

Ha, saw that coming in the last 15. That brings the tally to 35 - 13. Well done. Advence Orstralia fair.

Anyway, back on topic.

Cough = Coff
Tough = Tuff
Bough = bau

What diferrentiates? Is it regional or origin?

What is it that makes you Kiwis and Ozzies always um, discuss sports, hmm? Next thing you know, you'll be arguing over where the pav was invented...
But gee, I sure am glad both you guys are here! [blowing kisses e]

gee thanks Jackie that was great (I've always wanted to say that in a real context, hahahaha!)

...don't get us started on the pavlova thing. Actually I can't stand the stuff, so it's probably true the Kiwis invented it.

It's called Trans-Tasman Rivalry Jackie and is the national sport of both countries!

The Trans Tasman rivalry. Most of the banter stems from either cricket, rugby, accent, or ewephemisms.
It's all a bit of a hoot. I like my Pav with slices of Kiwifruit on top and fresh cream. Yummy. Always nice to hear from you Jackie.

Should any pronunciation prevail or have prevailed (I suppose one has among locals), I hope its users will be gracious toward and tolerant of speakers using other pronunciations, unlike many Nevadans are toward speakers (including schoolchildren) who do not pronounce Nevada like the romanticized silver-miners purportedly did.

I have the impression that some Coloradans have become as intolerant as the aforementioned Nevadans of the old pronunciation of their state's name.

Kiwis and West Islanders talking about who has the purer accent is like little kids in a mud puddle dicussing who's cleaner.

yeah, we'll all start drooling.

Ooooo, didn't know you were hot for ballerinas, et! ;0)

...which is what?

The pronunciation issue is short A versus broad A, with the short A pronunciation of the a after v in Nevada widely and dogmatically held as the correct one within Nevada. According to Wikipedia, “In 2005, the state issued a specialty license plate via the Nevada Commission on Tourism that lists the name of the state as Nevăda to help with the pronunciation problem.”

Here Colorado native “mapguy” states,

How unfortunate that they choose to look down their noses at pronunciations which are closer to the original words than the way they pronounce them. Both come from Spanish, and are pronounced in Spanish as koe-loe-rah-tho and nay-bah-tha I've never looked into it, but in Spanish they might be called "Coloradenses" and "Nevadeños". If anyone knows for sure, please jump in! :0)

Do I sumrise from this that Coloradans pronounce "pod" as pahd? It's very confusing for us Aussies who pronounce short o's as o's and not as a's. In call-uh-ROD-o for us ROD would rhyme with odd. So you mean you say it as cawl-uh-radduns? Where radd rhymes with bad.

That's a hard 'th' as in 'the' not a soft one as in 'thin' of course. The 'v' is pronounced somewhere between an English 'b' and 'v' - it's not quite either really.

That's a hard 'th' as in 'the' not a soft one as in 'thin' of course. The 'v' is pronounced somewhere between an English 'b' and 'v' - it's not quite either really.

That's a voiced th /ð/ as in they /þei/ and not a voiceless one as in thin /þɪn/. An intervocalic b or v in Spanish is pronounced as a voiced bilabial fricative /β/ as in deber 'ought' /ðɛβɛr/. Having grown up in California and lived in Nevada for a year, I heard both /nɛ'vɑdɑ/ and /nɛ'vædə/ for Nevada, both of which are nothing like /nɛ'βaða/.

[Corrected incorrect example of a voiced dental fricative.]

yeah that's what I meant, lol
I can never be bothered going off and cutting and pasting all those IPA symbols and remembering the technical terms.

...hang on, you say thick with a voiced 'th'?
I say it the same way I say thin.
A voiced 'th' (i.e. 'dh') would be for me as in:
with, without
the
they
them
that
worthy

Voiceless would be as in in:
think
thought
thaw
worthless

Thus showing the futility of explaining how we pronounce words by comparing them with how we pronounce other words. I, and probably most Coloradans, too, would pronounce odd to rhyme with pod.

You want confusing, start trying to figure out what R means in a pronunciation explanation from a non-rhotic speaker.

Hoo-hah, here we go! Most of time, for me, these are unvoiced! Likewise most folks around me (you too, Fal?). Don't know if it's an Aussie/UK issue. Maybe someone else does.

I knew zmjezhd would weigh in with all the technical stuff - can't resist! But we have covered this territory before about the "b" and "v" and Spain and South America and Puerto Rico... βlah βlah βlah... ;0)

...hang on, you say thick with a voiced 'th'?

That's how I was pronouncing it last night when I posted without proofreading. (Actually, I pronounce thick with a voiceless th.) They and there have voiced dental fricatives. With and without have voiceless ones though. I'll correct my blunder.

But we have covered this territory before about the "b" and "v" and Spain and South America and Puerto Rico... βlah βlah βlah... ;0)

Have we? How time flies like a banana.

And that goes double for place names! I have a friend from Colorado City, Texas (pronounced cawl-uh-RAY-dough) which is near El Dorado, Texas (duh-RAY-dough) who pronounces the state of Colorado and the Colorado river both as cah luh rod oh.

really? I thought time flies like an arrow?

lol. nice to know you're human too! I was a little confuzzled there for a while!

Is he? R'lyeh doesn't sound like a fun place for a human to live. Nuncle is clearly one of the Great Old Ones, though.