pronunciation of the word "Saturday"?
 

I've noticed that my parents pronounce Saturday kind of slurred into "sar dy". I find myself doing it if I spend long periods of time at home. I don't think I've ever heard anyone else say it this way outside of my family. Is it a rural North Carolina thing? Does anyone how the "t" can get dropped out of saturday?

Just a random thing I noticed tonight.

I've never heard it pronounced as anything other than "satur-day" like saturn.

Well, you're from North Carolina so it's not uncommon for basically every word in the dictionary to be pronounced really odd. I live in NC and the accents here drive me insane even though I've lived here my entire life. My dad's side of the family all say "Satterdee" instead of "Saturday," another variant from NC. I have heard Sardee used quite often from my hometown in Stokes County.

I agree, I think it is definitely an NC thing. I go to school in Georgia and have spent a good deal of time in Virginia and South Carolina and have only heard the "Satterdee" or "Sardee" used in North Carolina. Come to think of it, Sardee is probably just a shortened version of Satterdee.

If the accent drives you insane, move to Raleigh, almost getting more common to hear a Jersey or Boston accent at the grocery store, damn growth of the RTP.

Thanks for the reply, good to know I'm not the only one that notices this!

It's săt'ər-dā' here in California. That or Sábado.

Yeah, but some people turn the "t" into a "d," as in "sadderday." Californians don't think they have accents, but they do; we tend to slur or soften hard consonants, especially those that occur the middle of words. Took someone from the midwest to point that out to me. Of course, midwesterners don't think _they_ have accents, either.

The London accent that seems to be gaining prominence here (think Jamie Oliver) tends to render Saturday as "Sa'u'dai", or even "Sa'di".

There are many many more variants, but those two annoy me most.

it's not just an NC hting

listen to nascar and wrestling announcers, most of whom are not from NC and they will say mondee, tuesdee, saturdee, etc at the least and most likely sardee as well

aggravating...

I think that people are just getting lazy with their speech and how they pronounce words. Many sounds are blurred together and other letter sounds are substituted. Of course, the south also already have a drawl in their speech that makes it a lot easier to be even lazier about how they talked. I learned to talk in NC and I had a strong accent. My 'e's were pronouced almost like 'a's.
In WV, where I lived for a while they use the generic "uh" sound for about every vowel. Where I teach now, they use 'f' for 'th', 'b' for 'p', and many other substitutions that makes them near impossible to understand.

I hope that this isn't a downfall in our language or a mutation that will cause a major change in accents and words. We'll just have to wait and see I suppose.

That's true. I know it took me a bit of time to get over saying 'saddurday' and 'yeah'. I wonder if accents are a reflection of an attitude or mindset of a particular gerographical location or populace. Or perhaps it's the reverse: an attitude comes from an accent.

I grew up in the NorthWest and say saddurday. When I moved out East I made a conscious decision not to change the way I speak. Partly cause that is whom I am and didnt want to comform to way things work here. Even though I have been out here for 10 years, I still consider myself a Washingtonian. I still get odd looks when I say pop, when 99& of the people here say soda.

I'm in the sadderday group. My California speak is pretty severe. Dude, man and cool are staples of my interaction with people unless they're older folks. I find that I can mix this with more eloquent speech and get away with it here, but I think it doesn't go over very well in other parts of the country.

Hm. I guess I say saddur-day. I've never thought anything of it in my entire life, that just seems like how it's pronounced. I've never really heard anyone pronounce it another way.

I've heard some accents on the British TV shows ono and I watch where a person pronounces 'th' as 'f.' Ono wouldn't believe me because it was subtle, but I noticed it every single time until she finally heard it loud and clear. :) It takes some getting used to, and it definitely sounds less educated (I think that may be why the character(s) I've seen speak that way do so: they're fairly blue collar). Now, for kids in the US to speak this way...that I find interesting.

Thankfully I can't say I've noticed any blatent mispronunciations of the word Saturday. Unless I'm not reading the pronunciation that is intended, I don't think "Sadderday" is particularly bad. Saturday isn't exactly an easy word to bother with aspirating t's when said in normal conversation. Expecting people to do so, I think, is being overly picky. I can annunciate quite well when I need to for performing, but expecting that level of annunciation in faster-paced, daily speech is a bit silly.

According to my world history professor from 9th grade, the "dee" in the days of the week is the correct pronounciation. All I know is how annoying it was when she would say, "see you on mondee."

I never really noticed until now, but I pronounce it sattadee or sattaday. But then again I don't pronounce r's at the end of words either, so it may be a regional thing.

The most annoying thing about pronouncing the days of the week isn't the "dee" instead of "day." No. It's something far, far worse........


CHOOSE DAY instead of TUESDAY! Come on! It's a T! Not a CH! I can't stand when people pronounce Tuesday as "Choozdee." That gets on my nerves enough for me to verbally announce my annoyance. Choozday and Choozdee sayers must be eradicated from the planet.

I don't think I've ever encountered that.

I've lived in CT my whole life, and I cannot stand the sound of a hard "t" in the middle or at the end of a word. I don't know why, but it bothers me, and I won't say it, even if I technically pronounce words wrong because of it. This is null and void if I'm speakign in a fake British accent, but I don't do that often.

Well here in rural TN it's definitely more common to here "Sadderdee", but I could think of a few people who go with your pronunciation, VirFighter.


Also, I must say I'm rather proud of the TFP. A few years ago, I would have fully expected to enter this thread and find at least one instance of what I used to refer to as "south-bashing". Thank God I don't have to dust off the old soap box.

I don't recall having heard any days of the week pronounced oddly. My grandma grew up in Baltimore and had a few quirky pronunciations that I picked up on. It took me forever to learn to spell Cereal and Wash because I pronounced them Sare-ee-al and Warsh. I still do - it's too ingrained to even think of it when I'm saying it.

I'm from Chicago and tend to pronounce it Saaturday. Elongating the aa for some reason is really comon there. I used to live in California and they definitely do soften the consonants. Though, I also lived in New Orleans for awhile and those accents were the most difficult to understand initially. Not at all like you hear in movies of New Orleans.

t + yu = chu
 

It's common in many English dialects to turn a 't' in front of the 'y' sound into a 'ch'. (CBC seem to consider it proper, although relatively few people in Canada pronounce things that way.) I wasn't aware that some regions in America do the same, but considering the size of the country, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise.

My vowels are from Chicago's South Side so Saturday comes out as 'sAdderday', with the first vowel very strong. My time in NY and teaching British English gets me dropping the 'r' from time to time.

if your from where im from..australia, then you'll yeah some say sa-a-ay

you'll also get sata-dee

as well as sara-ray

satterday
or just plain ol saturday.

what ever tickles your fancy i guess... but it also depends on where your from, city country etc as well as socio economic status too

Language changes with time and distance. The further away you travel the greater the speech patterns will change. But, I've often wondered if the worldwide communucation made capable by modern technology will change this tendency.

Newscasters and actors are taught how to speak with a "Midwestern" accent. Since the midwest is the geographical center of the United States, it is thought that the speech patterns of midwest will be understandable by the people on either side, thusly appealing to the largest number viewers. As children grow up listening to radio and television, will they learn to speak with midwestern accents? Will local accents go away?

Here's a pronunciation question I've wanted to post about but haven't had the strong enough urge to do -

Zee or Zed?

Who uses what and where are you?

Zee for me, I'm an American in Texas.

Well, this is going to sound racist, but it's not. It's just an observation I've made in my 20 years of living in my home town. El Paso has a predominantly Hispanic population (proof), and as a result, there are fewer causasian people here than in other cities, I am guessing. What I've noticed is that this "Saturdee" (or "Mondee", "Tuesdee", "Wednesdee", etc. for that matter) pronunciation is almost exclusive to causasians, at least in El Paso, but there are a few exceptions. I'm not claiming that this is a universal truth; I'm just saying it just happens to be somewhat true in El Paso. I have yet to hear anyone say "Sar'dee" here though.

I say satday purely cos I am lazy. If in company or on the phone I say it properly. I think I say all other days normally but now I'm not so sure

Wow, don't check this thread for awhile and look at how many responses there are!

I think its a lot of fun to compare pronounciations of words. What can be weirder is that even with certain regions there are disputes. The deeper south accent can be different from the carolinas or virginia accent and of course everything can get jumbled up with TV watching the amount of moving/traveling people do.

Val, on your point about local accents possibly going away... I certainly hope not. One of the best things about coming home after being gone awhile is that twang in the air when people talk. :)