Yet Another Pronunciation Spinoff: Water


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Another Water like otter here, and it is almost always a faucet. I live in the Great Northwest.
 
I say wah-ter, which is how it was said in Michigan where I grew up. Many people pronounce it that way, as well, in Kentucky, but in some of the smaller towns you hear "war-ter."
 
Water like otter. And tap.

You made me realize my pronunciation is somewhere between "wotter" and "waugh-ter" (wotter would rhyme with otter and waugh-ter would rhyme with daughter).

Oh, and it's a faucet to me. I've heard "spigot," but it sounds very country and old fashioned to my ears.
 
I find it hard to believe so many Americans actually pronounce the T in water so distinctly. That sound very affected to me. Maybe if I were looking at the word by itself (as on this thread) and being asked to pronounce it I would say "wah-ter. But in actual speech, it would come out more as wah-der. Do most people really say boTTle of waTer? I doubt it...
 
I find it hard to believe so many Americans actually pronounce the T in water so distinctly. That sound very affected to me. Maybe if I were looking at the word by itself (as on this thread) and being asked to pronounce it I would say "wah-ter. But in actual speech, it would come out more as wah-der. Do most people really say boTTle of waTer? I doubt it...

LOL...it actually comes out boddle of waTer when I think about it!
 
Wadder when I am not thinking,

WAT-er when I am.

A lot of people tend to change the T sound to a D in my part of the midwest. So, a boddle of wadder. lol

It comes out of the tap or faucet, but if I have to say spigot, I say spig-it.
 
I'm from "Baldimore" LOL (Baltimore Md) and I say wood-er. My mom is from Tennessee and she says wah-der.
 
I say it like otter with a w, but now after reading this thread, I'm sitting here saying it over and over and it sounds different each time.
 
Like this video


Funny thing, I looked for a video of a NYer saying water and the woman in the video saying water happens to be a former co-worker.
 
On St. Patrick's Day, my daughter & I ended up on Youtube researching Irish accents... which led us down a 2-hour accent rabbit hole.

And we found Amy Walker...

Here she is doing a tour of American accents:

 
I'm a WAH-der. And growing up in Northern Illinois, we got our water from the faucet and drank it from a drinking fountain or water fountain. Here in Wisconsin, they get their water from a spigot and drink it from a BUBBLER. Lord I hate the term bubbler!
 





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