Help me identify a word pronounced differently in Scottish English

February 13, 2019 12:04 AM

I'm trying to identify a specific, commonly used word that's pronounced in a different way in Scottish English. Does anyone have any ideas what this word might be? It's on the tip of my tongue but I can't think of it... More details inside.

I think the word sounds different because the stress is in a different place, similar to saying definITEly instead of DEFinitely or DEVelop instead of deVELop.

Either that or one of the vowels is pronounced differently, e.g. pronouncing 'definite' to rhyme with 'finite'.

It's a commonly used word in all varieties of English and I think it's a verb in the same vein as 'implement', 'develop', 'considerable'.. something you might hear in a news report. Definitely not an informal or slang word. I think I often hear politicians and newsreaders saying it.

posted by iamsuper to Writing & Language (20 answers total)

Different in Scottish English compared to ... American English? The Queen’s English?

There’s a ton of words in what I think are fairly standard British English with different emphasis from American English, lik conTROVeresy vs CONtroversy
posted by aubilenon at 12:22 AM on February 13, 2019

Response by poster: Just to clarify:

Different to all other varieties of English (at least the main ones I am thinking of, definitely different to RP, North American and Australian English), and also I'm pretty sure the word is an adverb ending in -ly (not a verb as I said originally).
posted by iamsuper at 12:37 AM on February 13, 2019

Doesn't end in -ly, but...is it "police"? The stress isn't different in Standard Scottish English, but the actual Scots word can have different stress.

Quora discussion here.

Commenter #1: In Scottish Standard English (SSE), the stress in police is as in Standard English - po-LEESS (second syllable).

In Scots, the word is polis, and the stress is on the first syllable - PO-liss or POH-liss (the pronunciation of the o varies from an open to a closed sound, depending on the speaker, but the stress remains the same, always on the first syllable).

Commenter #2: The equivalent Scots words is a bit weird, with varying regional pronunciations. Some with stress on the first syllable, some with it on the second.

There's a great link to a YouTube clip demonstrating the first syllable stress variant.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:18 AM on February 13, 2019

Scottish and Northern Irish speakers often place the emphasis differently in the word "project" compared to other British English speakers - they tend to say "pro-ject" with a long o rather than "proj-ect" with a short o; even a shorter-sounding o in "project" from a Scottish or NI speaker sounds longer to me than I would say it (as a southern English person).
posted by terretu at 1:23 AM on February 13, 2019

Best answer: Given the context, maybe listen to some interviews with Nicola Sturgeon to see if the word pops up? And please report back. I could only think of tortoise (Scots pronounce as “tore-toys”, much to my delight).
posted by like_neon at 1:24 AM on February 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

Well, a fair few Scots do the definITEly thing you mention above, which always catches my south of England ears, even after more than a decade in Scotland. I’ve just looked through this list of 250 common adverbs and can’t see any others that leap out - maybe look through that yourself, or stick on Radio Scotland and get listening?
There are plenty of words where some Scottish accents pronounce a syllable more than they would be in the south of England: re-a-lly instead of rea-lly, u-su-all-y instead of us-all-y. One of those?
posted by penguin pie at 1:54 AM on February 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: As soon as I read like_neon's answer I had a vision of Nicola Sturgeon saying the word I am looking for:

"Necessarily", with the A pronounced like the A in "at" (I think most other varieties of English pronounce the A as an E: "NecessErily"). Wish I could find a clip now of a Scottish person saying "necessarily", it always really jumps out at me when they say it.

Thanks all!
posted by iamsuper at 2:00 AM on February 13, 2019

There's the word 'Scotland' itself...
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:03 AM on February 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

You might like to note that there's a tremendous variety of dialects in Scotland. They vary across geography as well as social class. There is no single answer to the question "how do Scottish people pronounce this thing".
posted by quacks like a duck at 5:06 AM on February 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

One that sticks in my mind is the pronunciation of the word "tomato" like toMATToe (as opposed to N. American toMAYdoe or Queen's English toMAHtoe). But it could have been north-of-England rather than Scottish.

And then there's Scots, which is a different language from English.
posted by heatherlogan at 5:58 AM on February 13, 2019

Could it be conTROVversy?
posted by heatherlogan at 6:04 AM on February 13, 2019

Some Scots pronounce 'definitely' as 'defin-ATE-ly'. To my ears its more common in Glasgow/Ayrshire and a bit of a class marker too. I'm middle-class/Edinburgh and say 'defin-IT-ly'.

One weird one I hear a lot among political reporters is pronouncing 'devolution' as 'devol-yoosion' with a soft s sound rather than devoluSHon' with a 'sh' sound. Could that be it?
posted by Happy Dave at 7:50 AM on February 13, 2019

Or, if you're thinking of synonyms for 'development' maybe it's the same verbal habit, but applied to 'evolution'?
posted by Happy Dave at 7:52 AM on February 13, 2019

I learned to say "scone" properly when I lived in Scotland (to rhyme with John rather than moan). I still have to say it that way. "Scoan" sounds wrong. "Scoone" (rhymes with noon) is okay though if referring to the place/stone.
posted by Preserver at 9:16 AM on February 13, 2019

Huge variations across all forms of Scots language, and no one shibboleth I can think of. From my (SW Scotland) experience:

• 30 can be pronounced therty
• The name of the letter J can be /jye/, to rhyme with I
• the /wh/ in where isn't the same as the /w/ in wear
• there tends to be just one /oo/ sound: book, boom, look; all the same.

posted by scruss at 10:28 AM on February 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

→ tortoise (Scots pronounce as “tore-toys”, much to my delight).

There was a toy shop in the south side of Glasgow called Torr Toys. Their logo involved a tortoise. For some reason the name is now associated with a Portuguese coffee accessory company.
posted by scruss at 10:35 AM on February 13, 2019

I'm always delighted by the Scottish version of "does not", "dis nae", which sounds exacty like "Disney".
posted by w0mbat at 2:17 PM on February 13, 2019

I have a Scottish accent and I heard somewhere once that the Scottish accent is the only one where the words "tied" and "tide" are pronounced differently. I can confirm that I pronounce then differently and I've asked a lot of non-Scottish people over the years to find a counter example without success. There's a little bit about it here.
posted by neilb449 at 10:33 AM on February 14, 2019

Just a comment to previous commenters since the question is answered: scone and controversy have widespread differences across the uk. There is no consistent pronunciation in many areas of the country and neither has a pronunciation that is cleanly divided England/Scotland.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 12:24 AM on February 15, 2019

… like the short-sighted woman who asked in a Glasgow bakery, "Is that a scone, or a meringue?" and got the response "Aye, right enough missus, it's a scone!"
posted by scruss at 4:34 PM on February 15, 2019