Pronunciation Pieces are short, light articles, each one usually focusing on an English word or phrase that illustrates a feature of phonetic or linguistic interest. They originally appeared in the series ‘Words of the Week’. They cover a wide range of topics include weak forms, contractions, linking R, T-epenthesis, G-dropping, T-glottaling, compound stress, rhoticity, vowel linking, aspiration, T/D-deletion, TH-fronting, tricky word stress, numerals, tricky spellings, negative transfer, pronouncing foreign words, accents of English, numerals, intonation, accentuation, word endings, prefixes and many others.

Sir Paul’s surprise

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Sir Paul McCartney surprised his fans this week, mainly by suggesting that stage fright almost made him leave the Beatles, and then by tweeting an old photo to celebrate Britain’s Bonfire Night on November 5th.

The title Sir – which shows that he’s been knighted by the Queen – is often mispronounced by non-natives. Here is a non-native saying Professor Sir Paul Collier:

There the word Sir is pronounced strongly. In England, on the other hand, Sir is just a weak syllable sə attached to the given name. Some native examples:

  Sir Mark Elder


  Sir John Keegan


  General Sir Harold Alexander


  Sir Francis Drake


  Sir Isaac Newton



(In the last example, Sir has no distinct vowel, giving Srisaac Newton.)

Here are all the instances of Sir in those clips:

This means that Sir sounds like the weak first syllable of surprise:

  to my surprise


  it should come as no surprise


  they simply caught us by surprise


  well, surprise, surprise


  to amaze and surprise



And here are the first syllables of surprise in those clips:

Sir can be pronounced strongly, when used as a term of address rather than as a title. In England it then has the long vowel əː (often written ɜː). Native examples:

  yes, sir


  brilliant idea, sir


  please, sir, can I have some more?


  d’you know how to drive a tank, sir?


  you, sir, are a pimp



And here are all the instances of strong sir in those clips:

Of course, if there’s a special reason to emphasize the title Sir, it may be pronounced strongly:

  Sir Richard, as he was then


  he became Sir Paul McCartney