John Wells’s phonetic blog

I have been browsing through the second edition of A Dictionary of London Place-Names by A.D. Mills, newly published in paperback by OUP...

Alexis Contreras writes from Mexico with what at first sight is a simple and straightforward question. I have been trying to figure out some...

Commenting on yesterday’s blog, Ed said Some working-class people have the idea that a schwa [in certain places] is lazy and that "pos...

I’ve heard one or two news presenters referring to the tropical storm/hurricane now threatening parts of the US as ˈaɪzæk . But Isaac is o...

The guilty verdict and the sentence passed on Anders Breivik, thought the Norwegian commentator interviewed on Sky News, would hopefully ...

The August 2012 issue of the Journal of the International Phonetic Association contains, as usual, several interesting and informative item...

I expect most families have private, family words, used only within the family and never with outsiders. When I was growing up, we certainly...