Okay, so I'm late and catching up, but "rigger" wrote on 20
May 2006 08:51:57 -0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

By the way, now that I've got someone of linguistic expertise handy, I
hope you can answer a question for me. I was listening to a shortwave
BBC news program the other day and the speaker, who seemed to my
uneducated ears as "Very British", kept on referring to China as
"Chin-er"; what's with that?

Just as there are silent letters, e.g. the 'b' in 'subtle'; so there
are 'invisible letters' which are pronounced, but not written, such as the
final 'r' in words written with terminal a vowel. Hence "Cuba" is
pronounced "Cub-er", "China" as "Chin'er", and "milk shake" as "frapp".
This is all part and properties of the transitive consonant, because to
make up for these pronunciation of invisible letters, other instances of
the letter are not pronounced, e.g. the Rs in Harvard (Haavad), automobile
(ca'ah) and Worcester (Woostah).
It is a hold over from the days of the Puritans, who spoke the dialect
of East Anglia, not necessarily that of London (i.e. the King's English.).


Is this still considered the "King's" (or
Queen's as some prefer) English? Or has your form of english also
stagnated? Some dialects such as Cockney seem quite different and
unintelligible. You dig what I'm sayin' bro'?

"There are places where English quite simply disappears.
In America, they haven't spoken it for years." Prof. H. Higgins.

dennis
in nca

--
pyotr filipivich.
as an explaination for the decline in the US's tech edge, James
Niccol wrote "It used to be that the USA was pretty good at
producing stuff teenaged boys could lose a finger or two playing with."