I'm used to hearing odd pronunciations of some English words from non-native speakers or from speakers of other dialects of English, e.g., Indian English. These are often simply a matter of stressing some syllable other than the standard. A classic example is the pronunciation of economic in which the accent is on the second syllable rather than on the third. Today I heard what I would consider one of these non-standard pronunciations from someone who I would have thought was a native speaker of English, UK PM Gordon Brown. He pronounced the verb contribute with the emphasis on the first syllable. Is this the standard UK pronunciation?

Yes. There are well-known differences in stress patterns between UK and US English: for example UK DIStributed and US diSTRIbuted, laBORatory and LAbratory, [i]conTROversy and CONtroversy. It seems to affect words of Greco-Latinate origin of over three syllables. I'll try to find some online references.

So maybe I just speak with a UK emphasis pattern? Ha! I grew up reading a lot. Most of my vocabulary comes from reading, rather than hearing a word. As a result, there are some words that I mispronounce because that's how they sounded in my head when I first read them. I've corrected myself in some cases, but less commonly used words are stuck in the original 'wrong' pronunciations.

My high school physics teacher was from India. The first week of class, she summoned someone to the board and told him to "devil up dis tea room". We were totally mystified. She started to get angry because he was just standing there, then she asked the rest of us to help him and we didn't know what to do either. Eventually, we learned how to develop this theorem.

My favorite saying of hers though is "If you do not have french curves, vee vill pro wide you with french curves. Vee vant to make your life more come fort able." Not only for the way she said it, but the idea that we might suddenly be endowed with sexy curves.

Then there were the old Home Depot commercials where the musical rhythm of the jingle converted it to "Low prices are just thuh buh guh ning."

Hang on, hang on, he's nae a native English speaker Faldage - hoots mon, he's a Scot is he nae?

I bet he trilled the 'r' as well?

He had what sounded to me like a very bland, basic English accent. Didn't sound in the least Scottish and I know Scottish accent; I grew up with the Renfrew accent all around me.

He's definitely a lowland Scot, from Glasgow.

Gordon Brown British PM

I know he's a Scot. That's the accent I grew up with all around me. His voice seems to have forgotten that inconvenient truth.

He sounds like a lowland Scot to me, though one educated at private schools I guess. But then I haven't listened to him much.

you be the judge.

What Pook said. He sounds to me like a Scot who got on the Received-English track real early, with the occasional throw-back slipping in.

My favorite UKism is reh NAY sonce, followed by al you MIN ee um, which is actually spelt differently than its American counterpart, strangely enough. :0)

We also spell it the correct way - aluminium and pronounce it like that. It's not Al-OO-m'num.

And how else would you pronounce renaissance? REN-ah-sonce? How come North Americans have this predilection for pronouncing anything with an 'e' in the first syllable with the stress on that syllable?

You yanks just don't know how to talk proper!

Actually the more I listen to him the less Scots he sounds, but yes there are the vestigial remnants such as the unvoiced 'wh' rather than a voiced 'wh' in words like 'what' and 'where' and the occasional rhotic rather than non-rhotic 'r' - definitely a Scots accent modified by the English Public School system.

I have read somewhere, however, that even the British media have taken him to task for some of his idiosyncratic pronunciations, so maybe at least some of it is simply Brownspeak.

Which way is correct depends on whether you go by Davy's first, second, or third attempt at naming it. It started off as alumium.

No no no, it's quite clear, historical facts have nothing to do with it, whatever way we do it must be the right way, mustn't it?

That's nothing--I found out from Bingley that Britspeakers think a waterspout is an old man (they pronounce geyser as geezer) and that a big ice floe is more slippery (a glacier is glassier).

Oh, hey, olly--I saw a bit on the Travel Channel about the Franz Joseph glacier last week.

I think that's Franz Josef.

Yes it is, been there done that

And that's not a waterspout, Jackie, this is a waterspout:
Waterspout off Sydney

Beautiful as long as it sticks to the water.

And how many syllables are there in it Jackie?

You can pronounce it geezer, gai-zer (ai as in aisle) or gay-zer as far as I'm concerned and I'll still understand you. Which do you say?

The Franz Josef, an awesome sight. More often than not I pronounce Glacier as Glaycier and not with the american inflection of gless Having said that, I Is'nt a true Britspeaker.

Josef, correct; sorry! I say guy-zer--only two syllAbles...
Don't think I've heard glesher; all I've ever heard here is glaysher.

I Is'nt a true Britspeaker Compared to here, you are!
This phrase reminded me of a story my husband came home with some years ago. He had a probationer sitting at his desk when another officer came by and said he thought Hubby's guy had been involved in a purse snatching. The guy reared up his head, straightened his shoulders, and said with mingled pride and outrage, "I ain't no puhss snatchah: I is a ahmed robbah!"

heh heh, you can't expect an Aussie not to comment on that one mate, can you!

Was watching that NZ show called Serious Crash Unit the other night and one of the police investigators said that the vehicle "lift the road and het a table drain before coming to rist in a backyard." Or words to that iffict. I wonder from whence cometh this intriguing vowel swapping in kiwi speak - do you know olly?

We would usually say glaycia, btw, without the 'sh'. It has three syllables - glay-see-uh.

With ya on that one.
Regarding the vowel swapping, I would suggest it has to do with early immigrant influence and native vowel sounds. Apart from the English settlers there were a lot of Scots and Irish and perhaps in the earlier part of last century it all seemed to ooze into our current hodgepodge we call keewee.

that NZ show called Serious Crash Unit Ooh, sounds good! [bloodthirsty e]

SCU - wiki
TV2NZ SCU

Wow, that sounds really good. I don't know that I'd enjoy this part, though: The series also talks to family members whose loved ones where involved in the crash.

Your program sounds actually educational, which is a good thing. The ones I watch here just show the crashes, with maybe a comment on the outcome: "walked away with minor injuries", "had a lot of time in jail to think about why", "sadly did not live", etc. Don't hear that last one very often (I think because they just don't show many of those, not because they don't happen). The last time I heard that one was probably to get a lesson across: two teens had stolen a car, ran a red light at high speed and were T-boned by a tanker truck which had the green. (This was a show of views from police car cameras.)

Yes we get those ones from you as well as the NZ one and our own Australian Police Reality TV shows.

I don't like the increasingly common practice of police forces in selling their CCTV and patrol car footage to TV channels. The potential for corruption is huge.

According to the CPI, NZ is 1st equal for low corruption levels and Australia is 11th, so you probably have less to worry about than many.

True. It's a complex situation. There are many reasons for that. Several Australian state police forces have been through judicial corruption enquiries and commissions in recent decades and been cleaned up a lot. But one endemic or inherent reason is perhaps that we do not have local police forces. Unlike in the States where local law enforcement is tied to local politics and therefore more easily corrupted at a local level, policing is solely a responsibility of State governments. Because police are transferred to and from different areas all the time, instead of being recruited from and staying in the one area, they are also not as liable to local biases and prejudices and family ties, etc that may affect their objectivity.

We USns even have multiple police forces cruising the same area. We had a two car accident on a city street yesterday and the first cops on the scene were state park police.

Is that state park... police, or state... park police? Do you mean parking police who are state troopers or is there a state police force called state park?

We only gots state and federal police here. Our State forces do everything your local cops and State Troopers would do. Our Feds are not like your FBI though - they only handle things like International Airports, Aviation Law, counter terrorism, human & narcotics trafficking (together with state forces), some missing persons stuff, cyber-crime, Policing of Australian Territories, Foreign Peace Keeping Operations, etc.

The State Parks have police forces. Depending on state law, they may or may not have police authority outside of the park boundaries (unless they're in pursuit of a suspect). County police forces, city police forces, and state police forces are the usual trio.

State and National Park police can also be called park rangers.
Not attesting to exact accuracy of anything on the above site. But it has a good over-all explanation.

Your Park Rangers are very different from ours! We have over 500 National Parks, but even though they are called National, the National Parks and Wildlife Officers are employed by respective State and Territory governments. Our Park Rangers are not involved in criminal law enforcement, though they can issue fines for various offences and do investigate infringements of Park Laws and have people charged. They do just about everything else though - they are part scientist, part guide, part wildlife expert, part firefighter, part parking inspector, part gardener - you name it they do it! They certainly have no need of the kevlar vests, tasers, shotguns and other defensive weapons that yours do! They leave all that stuff to the police.
Meet a Park Ranger
National Parks