Royal filled pauses
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In a comment on "Yair" (2/14/2025), Philip Taylor asserted that he routinely pronounces the orthographic "r" in the typical British filled-pause spelling "er":
« some Americans adopt a mistaken spelling pronunciation, rendering "er" with a final [r] » — well, speaking as a Briton, my "er" pauses, if prolonged, also end with an phoneme, although where exactly in the mouth I produce it I cannot be sure. Certainly it is totally unlike the trilled/r/ with which I might say "Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run run run", but I think that it might be fairly close to the phoneme in my Maigret or Rien de rien.
If Philip actually trills the /r/'s in "Run, rabbit, run", and he's not from Scotland, this is a big dialectological surprise. And it's equally unexpected if he produces something like a French uvular /r/ at the end of his filled pauses. More likely, this is an extreme example of why sociolinguists are skeptical of how people think they talk.
Still, it's worth a bit of time to confirm the OED's r-less assertion (audio) about British filled-pause pronunciation. This would be a big task, overall, given the wide range of British speech across geographical, social, ethnic, and temporal variables, so I thought I'd start with the Royal family. (And I'll also end there, unless Philip's peculiar perceptions return in another form…)
The Good, The Bad & The Rugby has a 2023 interview with "The Prince of Wales, The Princess of Wales, & The Princess Royal at Windsor Castle". It's 50 minutes long, so there's plenty of time for filled pauses.
Here's the first example from Princess Anne, at around 2:16, with a bit of the context:
And by itself (with a bit of the /t/ from the preceding "but"):
Here are four of her filled pauses (leaving out the /m/-final versions), concatenated:
Here's the first example from Prince William, at about 4:31:
By itself:
And four of his filled pauses, concatenated:
The vowel quality of the Royal filled pauses seems somewhat higher and fronter than typical American versions, though I don't have time this morning to quantify that impression. But it's clear that the Royal's filled pauses have no final rhotic sounds, of whatever phonetic variety.
Philip Taylor said,
February 16, 2025 @ 6:20 am
To clarify: (a) I trill my "r"s because as a child, I realised that otherwise they came out as "w"a — "wun, wabbit, wun, wabbit, wun wun wun". Seeking to avoid the derision of my classmates, I took to trilling them. And (b) as to whether or not my prolonged "er"s end with a French uvular /r/, I think the answer is "possibly not", but the more prolonged ones definitely end with a repeated voiced vibration coming from the back of the throat.
Philip Taylor said,
February 16, 2025 @ 7:23 am
Perhaps I should add that it is only my prolonged "er"s (upwards of 0,5 seconds) that end in this way — a short "uh" (less than 0,2 seconds in duration) has no final <r> at all.
Coby said,
February 16, 2025 @ 4:43 pm
I wonder is Philip's "r" in "er" or "erm" is something like /ɦ/, which I have heard from some English folk.
Robert Coren said,
February 16, 2025 @ 7:17 pm
Christopher Robin's assertion that his bear's name was "Winnie-ther-Pooh", which puzzled American me as a child, only makes sense if we assume a non-rhotic "ther".
Mark Liberman said,
February 16, 2025 @ 8:46 pm
@Coby: "I wonder is Philip's "r" in "er" or "erm" is something like /ɦ/, which I have heard from some English folk."
Unless Philip provides a recording of his casual conversation, rabbits and filled pauses and all, we can't tell anything much about any of this.
Philip Taylor said,
February 17, 2025 @ 6:42 am
I will try (to provide such a recording, that is) but my office PC doubles as my audio recording kit, and as few people come into my office I would need to remember to start recording when I initiate a telephone call …
Mark Liberman said,
February 17, 2025 @ 8:07 am
@Philip Taylor:
It would work just as well, I think, to record yourself telling a story, for example about a trip that you once took, or describing a building and its surroundings, or whatever.
Philip Taylor said,
February 17, 2025 @ 8:20 am
Will do, Mark, but based on feedback from various conference talks that I have given, I rarely use filled pauses in normal conference-style delivery so may need to deliberately insert a few …
Ross Presser said,
February 18, 2025 @ 3:44 pm
@Robert Coren: I was puzzled by exactly the same thing as a child and it did not make sense to me until reading what you just posted, some 50 years after the confusion began.
Mark Young said,
February 19, 2025 @ 8:25 am
@Ross Presser: I had been reading Winnie the Pooh stories to my own boys for quite some time before I realized that "Eeyore" was a non-rhotic representation of donkey braying.
I was also very puzzled by one fellow's amusement at finding a census record showing a "G. Hardist" working at a WWI munitions factory.
Robert Coren said,
February 19, 2025 @ 9:27 am
@Mark Young: Yeah, same for me with Eeyore, minus the reading-to-kids part.
Philip Taylor said,
February 19, 2025 @ 3:25 pm
"Eeyore" was completely transparent to this non-rhotic Briton, but Richard Adams' "hrududu" was obvious completely opaque to those making the film of Watership Down as they had the characters pronounce it /hruː·duː·duː/ — it should, of course, have been pronounced /hrʌ·dʌ·dʌ/, ths sound of a very low-revving internal combustion engine as used in (for example) John Deere tractors of the period …