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Pronunciation of Cairns
I would like to know whether Cairns is pronounced Can,Cans, Con or something else. Thank you.
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My daughter's boyfriend, an Aussie, pronounces it CANS.
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See - even the Aussies don't always pronounce the names correctly;
Its care ' ns ( care as in air ) not cans as that is what the place in France is and the pronounciation is different or at least it should be. |
Agree with Liz, except that the "r" usually isn't voiced, or is voiced very lightly. As, for example, Melbourne is "melb'n", not "mel-borne".
But I've often heard "cans" or something very like it. |
I always heard it as "cans" while in Oz.
The place in France is "can", no? |
AT one time, the australia.com web site had an Aussie narrator and he pronounced it "Kerns", with kind of a drawl on the e. He also pronounced Brisbane as Briz-bin. Just as I started to type this, I saw a commercial on TV for Outback Steakhouse and the guy, in his Aussie accent, said "Don't forget to try our new "Cans" Citrus Chicken. I looked at the screen & it said "Cairns".
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Out of curiosity I just checked an Outback Steakhouse menu. It looked suspiciously American, except for some vaguely Australian-sounding labels and the occasional misused expression like "They're too right!", or "Eat up mates!" ... and the burgers come with cheese and pickles!!
There was a reference to an Aussie-sized chicken breast, too. Logically that would be smaller than an American-sized chicken breast, but I guess that's not what they mean! Sorry, ran off the track again. Well "brizb'n" is right, but I can't imagine any Australian pronouncing Cairns as "kerns" - unless it didn't rhyme with "burns" but with the Scots word for children, "bairns". |
That's it Neil, it rhymes with "bairns" but without the Scot emphasis on the "r". There's a Cairns in Scotland locally pronounced "Cairrrrns". Or something like that. When I think I'm saying "Cairns" to overseas visitors they often hear it as "Kens".
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"Kens" with a lenthened "e" would be about right, then, Pat?
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Pat and Neil are right. "Refined" southerners like me (ha) rhyme it with bairns, but many say "cans". I lived in Cairns in 1995-96 and locals used both pronunciations. The minute and subtle variations in Oz accents are an enduring fascination for some of us.
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my vote goes to Kehns, ay. A deep north sentence punctuation, ay? An many Kehns locals is assprad (preoccupied with domestic order and cleanliness) as in "She's very assprad - she keeps Rome looking lovely". This is a feminine adjective only; there does not appear to be any exact masculine equivalent, although the noun Hairndiman conveys something of the same meaning, or "clever with their hens". From 'Let Stalk Strine'
There's mare chick momence for all, ay! FurryTiles |
All right now I shall be quite proper and refer to Cairns as Kehns but then what would the pronunciation of "Adelaide", "Perth" or "Darwin" be? I'm not fine with Melb'n but I'll need extra help if you someone changes Sydney!!
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I thought "ay" was British Colombian
Is it also the end of N. Queensland speak as well. Neil the bathrooms at out local Outback Steakhouse are mates and sheilas, pretty clear compared to the pictograph I encountered at a fish house in Hiroshima: 2 medieval folks in skirts. I had to wait for someone to come out to avoid a fox pass AndrewDavid |
A/D, I remember reading an imagined conversation in a book about North Qld called 'Mango Country', by John van Tiggelen. It went roughly like this:
- Ay, mate. - Ay. - Oddiday, ay? (Hot today, isn't it?) - Ay? - Said, soddiday. (I said, 'it's hot today'.) - Ay. Binodder, but ay. (Yes. It's been hotter, but I agree.) |
I love it AD "Fox Pass" must remember that one for some time in the future.
I think that anyone who actually believes that we go around calling people sheila and blokes or cobbers are thinking of a long time past world where post war actors tried to instill an over exagerated Australian accent onto a nation that had been taught the BBC "correct way" to pronounce words in an effort to strike out for ourselves ( grow up actually ) in Australia and get away from the English culture that had embraced us to a point that England was referred to as "home". However it is Melb'n, Brisb'n, Daar win, Per th, Ad el aid, AND last but not least Lawn ces ton. I read "Let Stalk Strine" too and I believe that that particular accent was borne in Melb'n and the Western suburbs of Sydney so when I packed my port and togs and moved to Queensland I had to be a rass kel and change my pronounciations of many words - which in fact I did not do because I felt quite superior with my "southern correctness". |
Quite right, Liz - "Let Stalk Strine" was compiled by Afferbeck Lauder (alphabetical order), Professor of Strine Studies, University of Sinny (Sydney), but born in Mairlben! Interestingly, the unique Aussie accent was already noted just some 25 years after the First Settlement - the 'currency' or native-born lads and lasses had a "peculiar accent, lacking both the euphony of standard English and the glottal patter of cockney: twangy, sharp, high in the nose, and as utterly unmistakable as the scent of burning eucalyptus" (Hughes, 'The Fatal Shore').
Variations in pronunciation has been categorised into three main varieties along the social scale of Broad (34%), General (55%) and Cultivated (11%), where Cultivated closely resembles the British Received Pronunciation and Broad shows those characteristics delineating the Australian accent at its most intense. So no wonder we have different views on how to pronounce Cairns, ;) As I read the morning papers, there's currently an amazing development on use of the word 'mate' at Parliament House, it's been banned! http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...958188851.html Mob of galahs, ay? Furry |
Yes, Perth as in worth, earth, girth; Adelaide like the character in "Guys and Dolls", stressed like "lemonade"; And Darwin (dah'win) was named for the great naturalist.
I'm assuming that the Australian accent noted in the early C19 was mainly a blend of working-class London and Irish, with a smattering of other British (chiefly English) regional accents. I once tried to teach a Texan friend how to pronounce Payneham (Road, in Adelaide) but it was hard going - he had trouble accepting that it was just "paynum". |
Sorry to be picky Neil ( difference in Canberra and Sydney pronunciation?).I would put the emphasis in AD in Adelaide but on ade in lemonade. Cheers mate!
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Good Heavens! Just looked up Outback Steakhouse, too. Not only does it serve "Cairn's Calamari", Kookaburra Wings?!! are also on the menu.
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Er - actually you're right, PA. Nothing to do with Canberra though (I'm a Windsor boy originally), just inattention. ADelaide it is and lemonADE it is.
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Yep Neil, most linguists believe the distinct Strine accent stems from the composition of the convicts (some 160,000)transported to the only country in the world to be settled and colonised as a huge jail (or goal, ;)) ... predominantly London English (Cockney), Irish and standard English.
As recently as 1940, a visiting British anthropologist Dr. Halliday Sutherland came up with a novel theory for its crude, ugly, flat, slovenly and corrupt nature: "I believe that the colonial accent in Australia is due to the effects of an inflammation of the nose, a complaint from which most Australians seem to suffer. The prevalent nose inflammation is probably due to pollen in the air, as there are thousands of grasses in Australia which produce this pollen." (Mitchell & Delbridge) He was trying to be diplomatic, he he, as the predominant view of Strine by the Poms was one of abhorrence, as an "abomination resulting from the perverted and immoral mature of the convicts" (Hughes again). So my pollen-stuffed nose would produce ADlayd :) |
Furry Tiles: Ow id your node fury. AD leat you probley say tings as thay shuld be sed.
I was listening intently to a British show the other day and remarked to my hubby who is/was English that he would have to have lessons on how to speak proper if he went back. There are B ooo ks and the pronounciation of one was intriguing to say the least - waronnnnn. |
FurryTiles, Sutherland was a man to be reckoned with, wasn't he? He seems to have had a talent for missing the obvious.
Of course, in the old days many of the middle class were mortified by the Australian accent and tried to ensure that their children weren't infected with it. They sent them to elocution lessons to round their vowels naicely in anticipation of a visit to the Mother Country (where presumably they fooled nobody). As late as the 1960s TV newsreaders favoured a clipped, quasi-English accent. This is even more evident in 1940s-50s newsreel films and radio broadcasts, where only the comics and baddies spoke broad Australian - no doubt a reflection of British films of the time, in which Cockneys were usually portrayed as simple-minded forelock-tuggers, clowns or villains. I read somewhere that in the 19th century even an upper-class English accent was different to what we now think of as the Queen's English. Even in the last 40 years or so the speech of the upper class has become significantly more flattened and closer to working-class London speech. |
I too recall the era of the Cultural Cringe here in Oz, where middle-class 'strines shuddered with disgust at hearing fair-dinkum broad accent. Probably the comment Ozzie-born 'n bred Prime Minister Menzies will be best remembered for was his "I'm British to my bootstraps".
Language - much to the dismay of purists - is a living, evolving and changing phenomenon, so yes indeed even the Queen's English has changed quite markedly in the past 40 years. There are some great videos titled <i>The Muvver Tongue</i> detailing the history of English. I seem to recall that in centuries past the British aristocrats/royalty considered English to be the dialect of the peasants, and only spoke French! |
Anyone who thinks that the English language should be set in concrete would benefit from reading the following books:
* "The Story of English" by Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil & William Cran (preferably with the BBC TV series); * "Mother Tongue" and "Made in America" by Bill Bryson; * "The Word on the Street: Fact and Fable about American English" by Prof John H McWhorter. |
As a regular visitor to your shores I have heard Cairns pronounced in many ways, creating the impression that maybe there were two places of similar origin in the same area!
Is this the time or place to introduce the 'sex' for 6 debate?! Dot |
You would hev to cross the dutch to get a sex peck and get on the puss. ! You would probably need a new thread to cover the Kiwi language structure !
And one last point if you can call Wagga Wagga...Wagga, why can't you call Woy Woy........Woy ! |
Marko, how many kuds do you have?
and when you come to an intersection in your motor car, do you turn right or lift? and don't forget when you arrive at the airport, you must chickenin 1 hour before departure. |
As Cairns is in the Deep North, you can pronounce it however you want to. It is full of refugees from the colder south in winter, and they rhyme it with bairns with the R not rolled, and full of overseas visitors the rest of the time. The local population moved out about ten years ago and commute back to Cairns to staff the tourist facilities.
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Neil,
Outback is an American Company. OSI operates Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba's Italian Grill, Roy's, Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, Lee Roy Selmon's, Bonefish Grill & Lee Roy Selmon's. How the company originated can be found here.. http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_...les/120194.pdf |
Cairns and area is full of refugees from the south permanently, and I'm one of them. Along with a good sprinkling of Europeans and Americans, who've decided to make it their home It just might have something to do with the best lifestyle in the country in mostly ageeable weather. No pollution, little road traffic in comparison with southern cities, easily accessible scenery to burn in every direction, its no wonder they're flocking here. And now super cheap airfares whenever the need is felt for some southern "culture".
The invasion has been a bit traumatic for many of the old locals who've fled up the hill to the Tableland in horror at invasion, but they hardly commute back to Cairns to serve tourist facilities. |
I find the one place most people get wrong is Canberra itself.
Is it just in Australia that the letter "h" is called haitch? I was taught 'aitch' but I seem to be the only one.My mother reckons the Irish Catholic nuns taugh "haitch". The word that most divided the cultured Aussie accent from the 'broad' is youse. Youse lot understand, eh? |
Cairns is a funny word for Americans for some reason. Most of the time we have no trouble at all coping with the unpronounced "r" -- We can hear an Aussie say "Perth" with a nice long schwa sound in the middle and no American "r" sound at all, and then repeat "Perth" to rhyme with the way we say "birth" -- with a pronounced "r".
Likewise almost every other place name with and "r" in it. But when it comes to "Cairns", Americans can't seem to interpret the unpronounced "r" as a feature of the Australian accent, and instead perform a peculiar oral gymnastic maneuvre -- "cyanns", with an hugely exaggerated short-but-prolonged "a". It's the only word I know of where Americans try to incorporate the Aussie accent into their pronunciation. It's very peculiar. They, or should I say we, take a bizarre pride in spreading this word as thinly as Vegemite, as if we're displaying some kind of secret knowledge. Weird. It's not how we pronounce the word "can", either. |
There's certainly a theory that the nuns and brothers so exaggerated the initial 'h' sound that it got attached to 'aitch' as well. According to this theory they were engaged in (literally) beating out of their working-class kids the habit of dropping their aitches and often weren't very well educated themselves. However my wife, who's a survivor of a parish school and no fan of the nuns, claims that 'haitch' wasn't heard at her school. Whatever the case, 'haitch' is certainly still alive and well.
One interesting side-effect of the Catholic school system was that the boys tended to be pointed towards white-collar jobs which could be gained on merit rather than unaffordable university studies. These jobs included the public service (entrance by competitive examination) and the law, which could be entered by a sort of apprenticeship system in which one worked in a law office and studied for the Solicitors Admission Board exams, which didn't require matriculation. Thus the public service contained a disproportionate number of Irish names. It was believed, often erroneously, that private sector employers were biased against Catholics. Some were certainly run on an old-school-tie basis, but not as many as my Catholic friends thought. |
On the "haitch" discussion ....
My grandparents had a neighbour of the "haitch" school,with a touch of the "Hyacinth Bouquet" character, of whom my grandmother used to say: "Mrs Manton drops her aitches at '(H)omebush and picks them up at (H)Ashfield". And indeed she did. One of her common sayings was .... "It seems to me, Mrs. Priestley, that the more we hearn the more we hoe". |
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