Storage has just one R
A revolting bowl of storridge
One of the most surprising details in the debate on carbon capture and storage is the discovery that practically everyone in Malta, and certainly almost all our politicians, pronounces storage to rhyme with porridge.
Storridge.
How did this happen? Was there a secret campaign for the pronunciation of storridge, in state schools, second-division church schools and independent schools?
Not that St Aloysius College is a second-division church school by any means, but it never seems to have had control over its pupils’ English pronunciation.
Was there, perhaps, a secret Ladybird book made especially for Malta, in which Peter ate his porridge while Jane cleaned out the storridge?
Could it perhaps be some kind of imported North Americanism? But then why that?
I’ve noticed that this is a relatively recent development, and that it has taken over completely from the previous mispronunciation of staw – rage. Store rage, like road rage.
Storridge, indeed.
Our politicians, if nobody else, should learn the correct pronunciation, so here is Daphne’s Guide to Not Sounding Like an Idiot.
Staw (pronounced as with ‘raw’)
Redge (pronounced as with ‘edge’)
The emphasis is on the first syllable and the second is ‘gobbled up’.
Let’s hope our politicos spend at least part of their Sunday practising it with their families, so that we are spared the pain of more storridge or store rage and worse, the spread of mispronunciation through the bad example set by our leading lights.
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What niggles me too is the pronounciation of the words roster more often pronounced as ‘rooster’ and worse is project, pronounced as pro-ject (with an emphasis on the pro) as in school project.
The Oxford dictionary does give the pronunciation of storage as rhyming with porridge: stɔːrɪdʒ and pɒrɪdʒ. Notice how they are identical from the r onwards, the difference being in the longish first vowel for storage and the shortish first vowel for porridge.
[Daphne – No it doesn’t, and the reason is, as you have noted, the difference in the first vowel sound. When you shorten the first vowel, the emphasis shifts, changing the pronunciation of the entire word. A short O gives you the double R sound that you get with porridge. A longer O gives you the single R that you get with storage. ]
That won’t work because many pronounce ‘edge’ as ‘adge’. What’s with this pronouncing an ‘e’ as an ‘a’? Hard boiled agg. They’ll pronounce storage as ‘staw adge’ if they follow your guide.
while we’re at it, will people stop saying euros, Mr PM included. It’s 1 euro, 2 euro 3 euro and so on.
[Daphne – No, actually in idiomatic English it’s euros, just as you would say cents, dollars and pounds. In English, currency always take the plural form.]
How about sterling? We don’t say two sterlings.
[Daphne – Sterling isn’t a currency, tbg. Britain’s currency is the POUND (sterling), aka GBP, in which the P stands for pound. In British shops, you pay in pounds and pence, not in sterling.]
Many, many people, including the Prime Minister pronounce roster as roaster.
He said it twice on Bondi+. I am no Daphne, and wouldn`t comment on English pronounciation, but the two words (as pronounced) mean something altogether different. You work on a roster and you roast a chicken.
[Daphne – There’s a separate post about this, Pat.]
Yes, I just realised.