Friday, March 8, 2019

pronunciation - How should I pronounce "Worcestershire" as a rhotic English speaker?



I'm aware that the English county of Worcestershire is pronounced in Britain as ['wu:stəʃə], more or less. However, this is a non-rhotic pronunciation, and it feels very unnatural for me to use this pronunciation when speaking in my native dialect. There are three /r/s in the spelling, and it seems like at least some of those should be reflected in the pronunciation. What is an appropriate way for a rhotic English speaker to pronounce the name?


Answer



Merriam-Webster (usually a good guide for rhotic US accents) gives \ˈwu̇s-tə(r)-ˌshir, -shər also -ˌshī(-ə)r\.  The OED doesn’t give a rhotic alternative at all, just /ˈwʊstəʃə(r)/.  Checking a few random other sources, I can’t find any suggesting that the first r should be pronounced.



I’d guess (fairly confidently) that a rhotic BrE speaker would say /ˈwʊstərʃər/ or /-ʃɪər/.  Using /-ʃaɪər/ (Merriam-Webster’s \-ˌshī(-ə)r\) for the suffix -shire is strongly marked as an Americanism, to my ear, though I don’t know a source to back this up.



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