I saw this film yesterday on TV so I couldn't pause / rewind / play again. Thing is, in one scene, a group of people were saluting the Duke of Devonshire (if I recall it correctly)and it seemed to me they pronounced the i in DevonshIre as /ai/ instead of /I/ as I thought would be correct. Did I mishear it?
Cheers
I'm ready to listen. Are you ready to think?
[deleted]
Hey Juliette! Tks for replying.
I'm aware of the British / American differences, but this is a British film with a majority (if not totality) of British cast.
I did get a chance to watch the film again and the scene in question is when Mr Fox is thanking the duchess for her help in his political campaign. Again, my impression is that the pronounces Devonshire with a diphthong sound (/ai/) instead of the single vowel /I/ that I'd have expected in the 'shire' part.
If you get to watch the film, please let me know what you think.
Cheers
I'm ready to listen. Are you ready to think?
We can hear both variants through out the movie. It looks like they didn't really pay much attention to this subject!
shareIt sounded like most people pronounced it "Devon-sher", not "Devon-shyer". As I am an American, I would say it the second way.
shareOver 250 years, pronunciations have changed; many modern day "American" variants are actually the way British English USED to be pronounced - it's us Brits who have changed. The word "shire" in isolation, meaning a county, is however still pronounced "shy-er" in Britain today. But as part of an actual county name, such as "Devonshire", it's always "shee-er".
I'm no expert on 18th C linguistics, but it's quite possible that it would have been "Devon-shy-er" in Britain back then - or even be "in transition" between the two pronunciations, hence the mixture in the movie.
Funnily enough, I've often wondered about the American pronunciaton of "Los Angeles" - in older US movies I've heard it with a hard "g", but it is now almost always a "j" sound.
Mike