Another pronunciation poll, this time about scones

[strange_complex]

It's confusing being a Midlander sometimes (for those unaware, I grew up in Birmingham).

I personally have the most terrible trouble with long and short 'a's in words like 'bath', 'glass', 'last' and so on, and can often be caught changing from one to the other in the middle of a sentence. Faced one day at a bus-stop in Reading with a car displaying the logo for a driving school called 'Fast Pass', my brain simply went into meltdown, and I had no idea how to read it: 'Faast Paass'? 'Fast Paass'? 'Faast Pass'? Or 'Fast Pass'?

In fact, I am so confused that I sometimes involve words which shouldn't be part of this in the whole muddle. Recently, I received a note at work telling me I had a parcel to collect, and when I went to ask one of the secretaries for it, I found myself asking for my 'passel'.

But I digress from the real issue at stake: scones.

While my sister was staying with me over the weekend, we discovered over the course of lunch on Monday that I pronounce the word with a long 'o' (so that it sounds like 'skoan'), while she pronounces it with a short 'o') (so that is sounds like 'skon'). This surprised me, since we both grew up in the same family and in the same area, but she explained that when she had moved to the South, everyone had laughed at her accent, so she had changed her pronunciation of some words, 'scone' included. This then surprised me even more, because I had always thought of 'skoan' as the southern pronunciation, and 'skon' as the northern.

Perhaps this is to be explained by the fact that her reference to moving 'South' actually meant she had moved to East London, where I can believe 'skon' might be more prevalent. Meanwhile, I, too, have broadly moved South (apart from the bit where I came to Belfast), yet 'skoan' seems to have fitted right in in both Bristol and Oxford. (Or if it hasn't, I haven't cared enough to notice).

In any case, I now want to check up on where each pronunciation is most common with the help of you, gentle readers. I know that both are in use: but where does each prevail? Tell me which bits of Britain you think are busy eating skoans, and which parts are happily munching on skons instead.

[Poll #386998]
Apologies, incidentally, to the good people of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland for not providing the option to further subdivide your (our?) regions: I'm only allowed a maximum of 15 options for this type of poll question, it transpires, so you will have to comment if you think different rules apply in different parts of your country. Comments on the typical pronunciation in English-speaking countries are, of course, also welcome.

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

I wasn't particularly aware of skon/skoan being a geographical divide. It seems to be fairly random, and independent of location, character, antecedents of poshness.

I'm a 'skon' sayer, myself.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Skoan is wrong. Just wrong.

[stompyboots.livejournal.com]

I'm going to comment because while I thought I knew before your post, your sister's thrown me completely.

My gran (born in Scotland, lived in County Durham from the end of WWII (ish) to the beginning of the sixties, and then London/commuter-ville from then until she died) always called them skoans.

My mother (London through and through, but Chelsea London, rather than Isle of Dogs London) calls them skons.

I always thought skoan was oop North and skon was dahn Saaf, but now I'm confused. I shall, however, continue to treat the word much as I do garage, which is to say that I use what I deem to be the correct pronunciation around posh people, and am bullied into using what I consider to be the *ahem* 'common' version around many of the reprobates I call friends.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Wrong like 'bone', 'throne', 'cone', 'phone', 'tone' and 'alone', eh?

And before you get clever about 'gone', 'shone' etc., those are perfect tenses of verbs, and therefore Not The Same. Ditto 'done', which follows its own path entirely.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I always though 'skoan' was the southern style, and therefore also the posher version, what with how 'received' pronunciation is usually that used in the South (East in particular). But it already seems from the answers to this poll that others do not agree...

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

[Universal English get-out]

It's an exception.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I always thought skoan was oop North and skon was dahn Saaf

Which is precisely the opposite of what I thought, and therefore lends weight to venta's opinion that this isn't really a geographical issue.

Which do you think is the posher option in this case, by the way? I would say it was 'skoan'.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I can't really argue with that...

[stompyboots.livejournal.com]

I'd say 'skon', but that's just because it's the pronunciation my mum uses. And seeing as she always pulls me up for saying 'neether' instead of 'nigh-ther', and others I can't think of at the moment, I use her as my standard of measurement for post pronunciations.

One thing to bear in mind with me, though, is that I spent a long time living in the States. So while I could write you a thesis on the social differences between neether and nigh-ther, or garahge and garridge, I can never remember whether it's or-eg-an-o or ori-gah-no, or Carr-ib-be-an or Carrib-e-an. I do know it's basil, not baysil, but sometimes (posh as I'd like to be) my mouth spews accidental American.

[missfairchild.livejournal.com]

Just out of interest, how do you pronounce "herbs"?

[nwhyte]

As written!

[missfairchild.livejournal.com]

Yes, me too. But I'm noticing an increase in the number of young Brits of my acquaintance who are saying "urbs".

[stompyboots.livejournal.com]

With an 'h'!

My parents did their best to ensure that, despite an American upbringing, I was still an English child (Enid Blyton and all). And when I do mis-say something in American, I try to correct it immediately.

One of the banes of my existence during adolescence was reading The Picture of Dorian Gray with a class full of Americans, who insisted on calling Dorian's friend Baysil. We had many debates, all of which concluded in me wanting to kill.

[missfairchild.livejournal.com]

I'm from the west coast of Scotland and pronounce scone as "skon", but there's a tendency to take the piss out of the Edinburgers and other assorted east coasters by spoofing their accents into a horrible faux posh twang. The word "skoan" is usually an integral part of such a pisstake.

It almost goes without saying that Scone is pronounced "scoon". I get a nervous tic in both arms when I hear some poor benighted person referring to the Stone of Skoan.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Pah. You'll be telling me next that you don't know the verb "to sco", meaning to combine flour, fat and fruit and bake in the oven.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Touché!

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Thanks for helping me not to get killed if I ever go to Scone.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I enjoy deliberately pronouncing this as something like 'Erbs and Spahces' (the spices are a necessary component of the phrase: there is no such thing as just Erbs). To be honest, I'm not sure why I do this, or of whom it might be a pastiche.

[missfairchild.livejournal.com]

who insisted on calling Dorian's friend Baysil

*choke*

Oh dear. And people wonder why students turn guns on each other in the US.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I reckon you should be grateful you got to read this at school at all! These days it would probably be banned (http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/05/28/life.language.reut/), on the grounds of controversial content.

[stompyboots.livejournal.com]

It's not society, it's pronunciation! I wonder if we could get Michael Moore to do a film on it: Praying for Baysil.

[stompyboots.livejournal.com]

Oh, good God!

Luckily I was in international schools while I was over there, which meant that while I had to suffer Americans in my classes, I didn't have to suffer their system of education as a whole. We'd probably have been assigned 'Fluffy Wuffy Learns to Love' instead of Oscar Wilde!

[missfairchild.livejournal.com]

Aaaargh! I can't take much more Merkin lunacy!

[jurious.livejournal.com]

We used to argue about this at school... I can't say that there was a pronunciation preference in Lincoln, therefore, because it always seemed pretty much 50-50.

Regardless, in my mind, it's a skoan, and I ain't changing my mind.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

It is clearly much more complex than I thought!

[ladyguinevere83.livejournal.com]

Well, as a born and bred Southerner (from just south of Reading), I will support your sister in that I, and almost everyone around me as well, have always pronounced it 'skon.' Nor is there much Northern among my relatives, since my mum is from South London and my dad from Cambridge.

I can help you with the 'Fast Pass' though.... it's 'Faast Paass.'

However, since I now live in Leicester, I am endlessly confused by pronunciations and local slang. The strangest though has to be 'going to mash' or in it's long version.... 'going to mash a cup of tea' and variations thereof. It took me forever to work out what they meant! And still I get images of mashed potato every time. And interestingly, one of the people at work is from Scotland, and she was confused by it as well.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Er, since I'm not sure what you're talking about, I'll let you do it and see what happens. Are you referring to some kind of book along the lines of a 'Corpus' of standard pronunciations or something??

[captainlucy.livejournal.com]

Myself, I generally say "skon", though every now and again I do forget myself and say "Skoan". My grannie was Paisley born & Belfast bred, and always said Skon, so that's probably where I picked it up from.

Skon

[wardrobewitch.livejournal.com]

This is the way that everyone I knew growing up pronounced it. When I did Home Economics (cookery class) it was always scones (pronounced as Skons).

Maybe you should do a poll asking people Skon or Skoan and telling you where they lived growing up.

[ex-kharin447.livejournal.com]

My parents are from Yorkshire and I grew up in the midlands; their pronounciation was usual, but not invaribly,'skon,' mine tends towards scones but also not consistently. I'm not sure there is much of a pattern. See:

http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/changingscene.pdf

In the case of the long a vowel, I think you're certainly correct that longer vowels tended to be associated with south-east, upper middle class RP accents, but it's worth recalling that both regional and class identities aren't anywhere near as stable as was once the case. The above link also has some information on that.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

No it isn't.

My formative experience on the divide was The Goodies, 'Bunfight At The OK Tea Rooms', in which posh southern Tim Booke-Taylor goes with 'skon', and noble heroic northerner Bill Oddie (okay, he was brought up in Birmingham, but he was born in Rochdale) sticks with the plainly correct 'skoan'.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm glad someone out there agrees with me! I was starting to feel us 'skoan' sayers were thin on the ground!

The letter 'e' on the end of a word in English has a very definite function, of which these 'skon' saying barbarians are apparently unaware...

[kate-r.livejournal.com]

From my limited experience everywhere I go people think I'm a freak for saying 'skoan'. Most people I've met in England think it's just wrong and all the Scottish people I've met think it's posh! Most Scottish shop keepers I've met and waitresses can't even understand what I want unless I say 'scon' but it feel so wrong to say that!

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about the pronunciation of Dutch, but anything that suggests I'm Right is good!

'Erbs

[(Anonymous)]

The only the context "the youth" seem to use the American "'erb" in is when talking about Marijuana and the phrase seems to have come through into UK English via Hip Hop and Rap.

[purple-peril.livejournal.com]

Skon. It's skon, dammit. Sigh, next you'll be telling me the cream goes on first.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

*Shock* Of course it does!

I am planning another post, with a different kind of poll, to readdress this issue, since the above hasn't clarified anything to me. But it will have to wait until I'm slightly less snowed under than I am right now...