Discussion Groups / English Usage / March 2007

I would disagree that it sounds like "her" and "burr" in the audio
pronunciation link you gave. The m-w example doesn't have quite the
long 'oo' sound of 'moor', but it's closer to that than it is to
'her'. I have heard people pronounce it to rhyme with her and burr,
but it's unusual.

To me, 'lure' and 'moor' rhyme, and 'sure is close to rhyming, but
'cure' has a 'you' sound it in. k-yu-r.

"Cure" seems to be especially difficult for many people, and the most
common mispronunciation seems to be 'keer', rhyming with "fear". For
reference, I am a native English speaker in western Canada.

There's no need to hyphenate random words like 'discrepancy' or
'pronounced'.

The OP offered no reason to prefer this on-line dictionary
(URL snipped) to others.  Is a general-purpose dictionary
(that includes pronunciation) better for pronunciation than
a specialist dictionary of pronunciation?  What does M-W's
literature say about regional American accents?  We know
it is an American dictionary but we know Americans speak
in a varieity of different ways.

I bet the discrepancy has a lot to do with M-W's Northeastern roots.  The
linguists who edit the entries probably favor New York metro area speech,
while the voice actors who record the pronunciations are taught to regard
Midwestern speech as neutral.

Here in eastern New York, I hear and say "sure" and "cure" both ways,
depending on context and emphasis, but I wouldn't expect to hear "lurr"
anywhere east of Sullivan County.  Notice that M-W's audio recording for
"lure" does use an "oo" sound.

Interesting that they omit the primarily Midwestern pronunciation but
list the primarily Southern "shore."

¬R

I think MW is right.
The most common US pronunciation of <sure> is /SUr/.

The <her>, <burr> group have a vowel both more front and lower than the
wone in the <sure>, <moor>, <cure>, <lure> group.

<her> (strong) /hR/ (/hE<r>/)
<her> (weak)   /hE<r>/ or /h@<r>/
<burr>         /bE<r>:/
<moor>         /mUr/
<cure>         /kjUr/
<lure>         /lUr/

If you and everyone you know pronounce them otherwise, you live in a
special linguistic group.  I think it more likely that you haven't
learned the vowel sounds of English, their place of articulation, or
their representations.

Yes.  You have erred.  Why you have erred we don't know you well enough
to say.

Are you Noah or are you Pat?

I am Pat from Wisconsin.  I do occasionally hear "sure" as "yer, her,
burr", but my personal pronunciation is "shoor" in the same way that I
say "moor", "Coors", and "boor", and I think most people around me also
say it "my way".  But some people pronounce "moor" as "more" (poor as
pore, pour as pore, etc).  I guess I would trust M-W to choose the more
frequently used pronunciation, and if they don't go my way, I don't try
to correct them.

(I couldn't avoid including the "yer [meaning "your"--and I pronounce
that as "yore"]", because, as with "sure" and "shore" I am familiar with
variations in  my own region.  But really, I had a Hmong co-worker for a
while whose name was "Yer Her", and can imagine a newcomer to the office
thinking, "Who is this person?  Oh!  yer her!)

Can we be specific about your Midwest?

Hello,

I want to thank everyone who responded to the pronunciation issue I
brought up. The resposes were very informative.

I'd like to answer all the questions and comments here:

Are you Noah or are you Pat?
I am Noah. I work under Pat and use his computer. Sorry for any
confusion.

Can we be specific about your Midwest?
Yes, I am from southeastern Wisconsin.

There's no need to hyphenate random words like 'discrepancy' or
'pronounced'.
Although I try to be keen on hyphenation, my hyphenating of two random
words was merely an accident. I know it's rather peculiar that I did
it twice.

I got a reply from Merriam-Webster, here it is:

That is a good observation.   You definitely have a point here.  We
have
noticed a definite tendency for people to pronounce \ur\ as \&r\ when
it
follows palatal consonants like \sh\ or \y\ (note that this is not the
situation in words like "lure", since \l\ is not a palatal
consonant).  This
is, indeed, how many of the actors who recorded the audio
pronunciations for
our online dictionary pronounced these words, though it was not noted
as
such in the phonetic transcription.  When we publish our next edition,
we
will definitely review all such words and update their pronunciations
accordingly.  Thank you once again for bringing this up.

**********************
Joshua S. Guenter, Ph.D.

I'd like to think that in some small way I made a difference.

Till next time.
-Noah