1 a In many Scottish accents there is no distinction in the pronunciation of look and Luke. In other words, where RP has two phonemes, ʊ and u:, these accents have only one.

b In many American accents ɑ and ɔ are not distinguished, so that calm rhymes with bomb.

c The distinction between the diphthongs eə and ɪə is disappearing in New Zealand English, so that three little bears and three little beers sound the same.

d In Northern England and in North America many words such as pass, laugh and bath are pronounced with æ. However, the ɑ: sound is retained in other words, for example, father. Unlike the previous examples, where an RP distinction between two phonemes has been collapsed into one phoneme, the distinction between æ and ɑ: has been retained in some regions, but is simply applied to different words.

e Most RP speakers would be happy with this rhyme, since RP is non-rhotic, i.e. r is not usually pronounced if it comes after a vowel, hence law and door rhyme, as do spa and star, lava and carver, and data and later. Rhotic accents, like those spoken in many parts of the United States, Scotland, Ireland and the west of England, on the other hand, pronounce final r, so none of these would be true rhymes.

2 The list on the left represents RP, the standard accent of British English, while the one on the right is General American (GA). (Remember that RP and GA are ‘standards’, and so do not take into account local differences within these two large and linguistically complex regions.)

Significant (and tell-tale) differences are:

• • The cluster of sounds represented by the words TRAP, LOT, CLOTH, THOUGHT, BATH, PALM are more diverse in RP, and differently distributed. Indeed, in much of North America, such as in the western states and eastern New England, there is no longer a distinction between the vowel sounds in CLOTH/THOUGHT and LOT/PALM, so that cot and caught are now pronounced the same.

• • The RP diphthongs (or glides from one vowel sound to another) represented by NEAR, SQUARE and CURE do not commonly occur in GA, being replaced by a single vowel followed by r – nir, skwɛr and kyʊr. (For an explanation of these transcription conventions, see the following tasks.)