Saturday 25 October 2014

How to pronounce 'population'

LPD3 offers this pronunciation for the GB version of population:


EPD18 has this entry:


Both dictionaries have a yod as onset of the second syllable. Now listen to Bishop Richard Harries and General Sir Nicholas P Carter using this word without yod.
Bishop Harries says this
[...] up to 60% of the population


and this:
[...] 15% of the population at the time


General Carter, head of the British Army, says:
[...] but I'm absolutely confident that the majority of the population in central Helmand will be secured by Afghan forces.

6 comments:

  1. I think I can detect a phantom yod in the first video, so I wouldn't dare to imply that BRH is a foreign spy.

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  2. Ahem, sorry. After listening to the first video more carefully, I admit there is no phantom yod whatsoever.

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  3. An interesting example of the differing approaches of the two dictionaries to the symbolization of weak vowels. For LPD3, [u] does the job of covering a vowel of FOOT-like quality or of GOOSE-like quality, while schwa is just schwa. For EPD18, the GOOSE-like weak vowel quality isn't included at all, but just a rather old-fashioned weak FOOT vowel as an alternative to schwa.

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  4. You could also say that every dictionary is correct, and together they off the (almost) total possible variation. All you need now is to find someone saying poplation.

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