Forward Pronunciation

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Alex calling from Amarillo, Texas.

Welcome, Alex. How can we help you?

Yes, I have a question for you.

It kind of started out as a little bit of a pet peeve.

I noticed people would say forward instead of forward.

And as I paid attention to it more and more, I noticed that it was happening on the national stage, too.

Like with elected officials, politicians, reporters, so on and so forth,

To the point where I realize that I hear it more than I actually hear forward.

So when exactly did this shift kind of happen?

I don’t know. It just seems really accepted nowadays.

So we’re talking about the word forward, F-O-R-W-A-R-D, right?

Yes, sir.

And how do you say it? Do you say forward or forward?

I say forward.

Forward.

And are you finding any other patterns in the people who say this?

Are they of a certain education level or a certain part of the country or anything like that?

No, not really.

Like I said, I’ve kind of noticed it on the national scale because I work in the news media,

And I’m hearing reports from all over the country all the time.

And I just hear it more often than not.

Yeah, it’s a thing for that first R in forward to be dropped.

And there are records that linguists have compiled that show it’s been happening for at least 100 years.

There’s a process called dissimilation, which I realize is a wonky word,

But it’s one of the ways in which we drop sounds from words.

And in this particular case, what’s happening is when a sound occurs more than once in a word,

Sometimes we drop one of those instances of that sound,

Especially when the sound occurs between a consonant made with the lips

And one made with the tip of the tongue.

And that’s literally what’s happening here with forward.

And you find this in other words.

It’s not only forward that you hear.

You hear governor with that first R dropped.

Governor.

Particular.

Particular.

Surprise is a very common one.

It often comes out as surprise.

That first R is gone.

Paraphernalia.

Paraphernalia.

Albuquerque.

That first R just poof, poof goes away.

Oh, there’s an R.

There’s an R there.

And there’s a really nice paper by Nancy Hall called R-Dissimilation, D-I-S-S-I-M-I-L-A-T-O-N.

And it’s very wonky, very academic, but there’s lists in it of words that go through this dissimilation.

And she tries to explain in a reasonable way the patterns that she sees.

And I think she’s done an excellent job of showing that it isn’t just one-offs,

But there’s a real physical thing happening in the mouth.

There’s something about these words and the order in which the sounds occur

That is forcing us down a simpler path when we speak.

And this happens a lot in English.

Actually, every language goes through this.

So the other thing that I want to note here is I am not surprised that you’ve heard this

On the national stage from a lot of national news media

Because I have seen evidence that some people believe that forward is the only correct pronunciation of that word,

And they teach it to their staff.

And I’ve heard of this, and I think it’s a mistake,

But I think they’re modeling it on a British pronunciation, first of all.

They’re modeling on old East Coast white male pronunciations in the late 1890s,

And they’re also thinking of the word toward, which some people believe should only be pronounced as toward.

So they’re teaching people to say it that way, which for right or wrong, I think it’s incorrect.

But lots of people are doing it.

I’ve got a soup spoon.

I can’t stop the tide, you know?

I have a friend from New York who says there’s no R in forward, and if there is, it’s optional.

Like neither R is in forward?

What is forward?

Forward.

Forward.

She also says always.

Always.

You know, the W.

Sounds like she’s got some speech things.

Now, there are people, by the way, who pronounce forward to rhyme with Ford, F-O-R-D.

And as a matter of fact, there are people who say the word forehead and the word forward, they rhyme.

They sound like homophones.

Ford.

Yeah, it’s very interesting.

So anyway, one thing I want to note before we go, Alex, is I counted nine different pronunciations that are possible in the United States of the word forward.

Really?

Depending where you are, what your background is, whether or not you have r-fulness or roticity,

That is, you come from a dialect culture where the r is not pronounced in certain circumstances and other things.

So it’s got a track record for being kind of an ambiguous word.

The oldest words have these two conflicting characteristics.

One is the oldest words tend to be very stable.

But the thing is, if they had multiple forms back in the day, they may still have multiple stable forms now.

And I believe forward is one of those.

That’s super interesting.

Yeah, language is interesting.

We should do a show about that.

Let’s.

Anyway, I hope you come away a little reassured, Alex.

No, yeah, I do appreciate it, Grant and Martha.

All right, call us again sometime with your observations, all right?

All right, Candy.

We look forward to it.

Take care.

I want to share the name of that paper one more time.

Yeah.

I think it’s going to be too wonky for most of the audience, but the lists are good.

The list of words that undergo this dissimilation.

It’s called R-Dissimilation, D-I-S-S-I-M-I-L-A-T-I-O-N,

And it’s by Nancy Hall, and it’s freely available in PDF form.

Check it out.

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