Job Discussion Forums

[Chancellor]

I'm only posting this link because of the pronunciation angle it presents: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/1044530/Gay-dog-refused-entry-to-Adelaide-restaurant

In most variations of American English, "gay" is pronounced with a long a sound and rhymes with day, pay, say, may...

Apparently, down in the land of Oz, "gay" is pronounced in such a way that it rhymes with guy and sounds similar to "guide" - at least it appears to have been the case in the mind of a waiter of Thai ancestry. So, in this particular case, it appears that the waiter became confused when the woman asked if the guide dog could come into the restaurant.

Again, I'm only posting the link because of the pronunciation angle - the rest of it is pretty much irrelevant to the topic of discussion which is...

Pronunciation differences among Anglophone countries.

[spiral78]

Those of us who work in international situations deal with this daily. My Scottish colleagues have quite different pronunciation than mine, for example...but we are all within the acceptable international English range. Further, we use different words and phrases in many situations.

There is no 'standard,' but there is a 'range of standard' that equals 'understandable international English pronunciation.'

Students who are immigrants to an Anglophone country obviously face very different challenges in adjusting to local pronunciation styles.

[Stephen Jones]

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2282#more-2282

Language Log take on this and Australian vowels.

[Chancellor]

[winthorpe]

This reminds me of the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode with the homophobic dog. Hilarious.