this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Eh. The British phonetic for horse is "haws". And the British phonetic for sauce is "saws".
Apparently the Brits lose as many R's as those of us in New England.
'Saws' is the standard American pronunciation - au makes a sound like 'aw'.
British adds an r to sauce.
I actually grabbed formal pronunciation (though it was a simplified form). The proper form for UK pronunciation for sauce would be: sɔːs, often typed as "saws"
That ɔː symbol is typically associated with the word "thought", and is best described by me as an "awww" sound with a slight hint of an "r" hidden in it.
The formal US pronunciation is sɑːs (much easier to type, lol). The a: sound is the "ah" sound in "father". That's often typed as "saas" because it's not a heavy h
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/sauce
British: I'd type it as "sawse"
American: I'd type it as "sahse"... but as I said, it's not a heavy h, so it's not quite as accurate as
saasI'm not familiar with phonetic spelling at all really, especially when it comes to British English, so I'm not approaching the subject with any authority..
I dont know if it's just a disconnect between proper phonetics and real language or differences in accents, but after listening 3 examples form different speakers, there is a very present r sound. That not being present in the phonetic spelling is confusing to me. And the 'translatwd' 'Saws' nor 'sawse' convey how the word is spoken. I've actually seen 'sawse' used as a stylized American spelling with emphasis on the 'aw'.
The difference between standard pronunciation and conversational pronunciation is staggering. Factors for that include
importance in the sentence. If you order tomato sauce with your pasta, the "sauce" part is rather unimportant as it can be inferred from standards.
surrounding words. In a sentence, preceding and subsequent words (or part-of-words) can influence the pronunciation.
vigilance. Tired speakers tend to slur their words more than usual.
general talking speed. The faster the individual talks, the more corners they will cut with their pronunciation.
Words are pronounced according to the speakers expectation of the conversational partner. You speak slower and more clearly to someone learning English as a second+ language than to your childhood buddy.
Word lists without context are much better for judging what people expect to hear when they anticipate the word. Here are some samples for the word sauce and horse. The 'r' in horse is pretty much silent in BE, but not in AE.
Source: I studied computational linguistics with a minor in phonetics.
Honestly, the every British UK audio I hear for the word "sauce" sounds like "Saws" without pronouncing the S at the end as a "Z" sound. I wonder if it's a dialect?
I'm Bostonian (give or take), so I'm unaware of missing R's most of the time, but hyper-aware of them when I listen for them. British folks say "sauce" similar to how I would. Throwing that R in the trash.