I don't care how often in my life I hear "aw-TOM-a-tohn". Every time I think of this word, I will always have to overcome my urge to pronounce it "auto-MATE-on".
I'm fairly sure that deliberately teaching your children to sound like ponces is a punishable offence in this country. Though, on second though, perhaps not in New York.
interesting: of course you know what fiLAY and valAY sound like to British ears, but I didn't think it was symmetrical: would the British pronunciation of these words really have a social position in the US?
Maybe I'm doing them a disservice by teaching them short o and a distinct /t/ - but I think they'll need them when they travel.
Social position, perhaps not, but it will sound very strange, and probably uneducated, to a lot of people. I was taught that we do NOT pronounce the final "t" in those words, any more than we say "BAL-leT".
I also flinch when I hear "GA-teau".
When I was sixteen, I was part of a US-based youth orchestra. We went to a music festival in Aberdeen. Sixty of us. We managed to bully our long-suffering minder/guide/saint into pronouncing "buffet" "buf-FAY", US style. After hearing sixty US teenagers scream "buf-FAY" at her for a solid week, she accent switched. We all cheered.
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Maybe I'm doing them a disservice by teaching them short o and a distinct /t/ - but I think they'll need them when they travel.
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I also flinch when I hear "GA-teau".
When I was sixteen, I was part of a US-based youth orchestra. We went to a music festival in Aberdeen. Sixty of us. We managed to bully our long-suffering minder/guide/saint into pronouncing "buffet" "buf-FAY", US style. After hearing sixty US teenagers scream "buf-FAY" at her for a solid week, she accent switched. We all cheered.