Who knew?

…that a little thing like the pronunciation of the word “scone” would generate so much email! Since yesterday, people all across the anglosphere (though also from places like Greece and Taiwan) have weighed in on the issue. Most have expressed utter disbelief that there’s any way to pronounce “scone” other than as rhyming with “gone”. What can I say? That’s the standard here in midwestern America. We’re plain-spoken people. We pronounce every vowel and consonant we see. If we come across a word that looks like “cone” but has an “s” in front of it, odds are we’ll pronounce them the same way. More than a few of us also say “wor-chester-shire” when speaking the name of the sauce aloud.

However we’re not at all alone, as Aoife (pronounced EE-fah, I believe) of The Daily Spud points out:

Here in Ireland, it’s the inverse situation to the one described by your New Zealand reader – the predominant pronunciation here is the one that rhymes with ‘bone’ and, when someone uses the rhymes with ‘gone’ version, I consider that a bit posh!

Reader Dave, as counterpoint, submits Monty Python-related testimony. That’s the second time they’ve been up in a week, I think.