I was listening to an audio cassette of a Raymond Chandler novel read by Elliott Gould. Gould was at his laid back best but I was surprised when he said something like “The sun shone that day…” and pronounced the word shone as ‘shown’ rather than to rhyme with ‘gone’. Is that the usual American sound for the word or is it perhaps either a regional or a Gould variation?

Dear dxb: I remember hearing a rather erudite clergyman
use that pronunciation many years ago,and he commented on it, but I can't remember what he said to justify his preference.

If I had heard someone say "The sun Sean that day," I would have been perplexed, wondering what the heck he meant. Here on the left bank shone rhymes with cone.

I'm with TEd. never heard it shawn...

that's what you do to a sheep...

left bank

I love this and intend to start using it immediately!

And yeah, dixbie, like the fellas said.

here in flyover land it also sounds like shown, but then we learned a rubric that a final 'e' makes the previous vowel sound long (like in scone ;).

Long O is the onliest AHD4 recognizes.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/53/S0345300.html

That's interesting. Most of the on-line dictionaries are American but I found that M-W recognises the British pronunciation, and apparently it is heard in Canada too. Don't know what they say up top in the antipodes. This is the M-W entry and I have included the etymology for the heck of it:

Main Entry: 1 shine
Pronunciation: 'shIn
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): shone /'shOn, esp Canadian and British 'shän/; or shined; shin·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English scInan; akin to Old High German skInan to shine and perhaps to Greek skia shadow

That is extraordinary. I never knew Americans pronounce "shone" as homophonous with "shown". Round here, it's pronounced "shon", and it's a sign of how rarely the word is used in speech that I've never heard an American say the word on TV or film.

Similarly there are two variant pronunciations of "scone".

akin to Old High German skInan to shine and perhaps to Greek skia shadow

Up is down, black is white and shine is shadow. Those wacky indo-europeans!

Canadian and British 'shän?? Canadian perhaps, but I'm surprised an American dictionary lists obscure regional dialects from Britain. shän in the West Country, where they talks loik poirates perhaps, and in southern Ireland. shon for the rest of us, like shot and shop and Ron and Don.

shon for the rest of us, like shot and shop and Ron and Don Oh, that sounds so wrong to me! It's like tsuwm said: if there's an e on the end, that makes the vowel LONG. I can't think of one single word we use that has the shon sound. Sean comes close, but that's really more of a shawn, usually.

like shot and shop and Ron and Don

Of course, this presupposes that you know how the speaker pronounces 'shot and shop and Ron and Don.'

this presupposes that you know how the speaker pronounces 'shot and shop and Ron and Don.'

Yes and no. We don't know from this description how Jenet pronounces the word "shone" at the phonetic level. But the US/British distinction here is phonemic.

But your main point is correct - sounds in general and these vowels in particular are notoriously difficult to discuss in a text-based medium, because of the amount of regional variation, and assumptions that turn out not to be universal. For many Americans, "stock" and "stalk" are homophones, hence punning titles like "Silk Stalkings" and "The Squawk Exchange", that are incomprehensible or laboured to the European ear. So you can't really convey a pronunciation by appealing to the pronunciation of another word, unless you are pretty sure of how every reader pronounces that other word.

I can't think of one single word we use that has the shon sound.

What about "gone," as dixbie used in his example?

>I can't think of one single word..

while one, none and done don't sound like shon (I'd guess), they are exceptions to the long vowel "rule".

I've usually heard shone and scone to rhyme with on. Scone with a long o denotes someone who has been to Britain recently and shone is a bit high-falutin for the colonies. (except when someone is shown the door) But then I gave up on expecting English to follow its own rules long ago.
It is very important, when buying a foreign phrase book to get one written in your own neighbourhood or all the little pronunciation tips turn into slips. eg the Berlitz book that made a distinction between the "oo" sound in school and the "u" sound in tube. In Canada (Western anyway) they are identical to that in roof. There is no Canadian equivilant that I can think of to the American vowel in roof.

I'm with Dixbie in both locations (down here in GB and up there in NZ).

Quite a while ago, I asked about the pronunciation of
"The Stone of Scone". I didn't get an answer. What say
you now?

I grew up saying shone as in "shown". People in Central Florida pronounce it both ways ("shown" or "shawn"), depending on where they are from.

If I had heard the passage I would have have wondered what it was that the sun was shown. As Capfka said, "shone" rhymes with "gone" up here.

shon for the rest of us, like shot and shop and Ron and Don Oh, that sounds so wrong to me! It's like tsuwm said: if there's an e on the end, that makes the vowel LONG. I can't think of one single word we use that has the shon sound. Sean comes close, but that's really more of a shawn, usually.

Right back at ya Jackie. In OzLand it's shon - and scon. No trailing vowel rule applied.

And as for Shorn - no way does Sean come out the same as shon!

Finally I betcha don't say "own" when pronouncing the number preceding two!! (Edit: ....as mentioned by others)

100 degrees F today - busy trying to think of reasons to stay in the office. Certainly don't want to go driving about in my 40yo, vinyl seated/non air conditioned marque!

stales