Audio and transcript
The pronunciation of ‘scone’
- Liz: So, Lyndon, do you say /skɒn/ or /skoʊn/?
- Lyndon: I have to say, I say /skoʊn/, which I guess is a bit unusual cause normally you'd think in the North, you would have a shorter vowel. Wouldn't you?
- Liz: I don't know. My family, well my dad's family says /skɒn/. They're from Yorkshire. But I know other families who lived close by, and they said /skoʊn/? My Mom would also say /skɒn/, but she's from the South West. So, I'm a /skɒn/ person.
- Lyndon: I can't imagine saying a '/skɒn/ and butter'. It doesn't make sense to me. But a ‘/skoʊn/and butter' that sounds perfect. What would you say?
- Liz: Oh... I think '/skɒn/ '? You say 'gone' right?
- Lyndon: Yeah of course!
- Liz: There you go!
- Lyndon: But I would say 'castle' and not 'castle' and you might say 'castle' but '/skɒn/', which I don't understand.
- Liz: Well, I heard that it originally came from the kind of, like, the old English, that came from Danish and German, it came from 'churner', like nice beautiful bread, kind of 'churner bread'. And you know when I was in America, you have something called 'biscuits', but actually, for me they're more like /skɒns/.
- Cheryl: They are. That's what we always tell people when that French people know /skoʊn/s, which is how we'd say it in America, but we say they're like, American biscuits are like British /skoʊn/s, more than anything else...
- Liz: But you have them with kind of sausage and...
- Cheryl: Sometimes! You can have them…butter and jelly or...
- Liz: Okay, you can have them sweet?
- Cheryl: Oh yeah yeah! Or you can use them for strawberry shortcake. You put some strawberry, sugar and whipped cream...
- Liz: When I, was like, what do you say, /skoʊn/s and, do you say biscuits it and gravy, is that it?
- Cheryl: Yeah! Biscuits and gravy, basically, it's a béchamel with sausage in it, and then you spoon it over the biscuits. It's poverty food, really, but it's cheap and
filling...
- Liz: Because gravy for us is just kind of...
- Cheryl: I know.
- Liz: Just normal dark brown...
- Cheryl: We have brown gravy.
- Liz: Just sauce that you have on, with your roast beef. It's interesting.
- Cheryl: In the South, in America, we've got many kinds of gravy.
- Liz: I tried some once when I was in New York. I had... I went to a Southern restaurant and had biscuits and gravy. It was very good, I have to say.
- Cheryl: Oh good!
- Lyndon: Conclusion?
- Liz: /Skɒn/!
- Cheryl: /Skoʊn/!
- Lyndon: /Skoʊn/!
- Liz: Or biscuit!
- Cheryl: Three ways!
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