Pronunciation

It is amazing how diverse pronunciation is in the English Language.

Is Bath pronouned Barth of Baff?

Apparently the pronunciation of the word  says, ate, mischievous, harass, garage, schedule and aitch is shifting. For instance the pronunciation of says is moving to be more like lays than Fez (I'm in the later camp!). Mischievous is turning in to miss-CHEEVY-us rather than MISS-chiv-us.

It is easy to dismiss changes as being due to the Americanization of society (films etc) but the move of Garage to sound more like Garridge is not due to this. Words like Village and Garrage come from the French originally.

The letter H was traditionally pronounced Aitch but is moving to Haitch. And I was intrigued to read that in the 19th century it was common to drop the H on words like Hospital, Hotel and Herb. Americans still say Erb.

At one point how you spoke was determined by your perceived class now it is more likely to be age!