Trap-bath split
Were British Accents Invented in the 1700s? A 'Deep Dive'
Play videoVideo about the evolution of "British English" (a term acknowledged within the video to be problematic, but intentionally used to attract a non-linguist audience). Focuses in particular on the evolution of rhotic sounds in English, especially in contexts in which they're dropped.
A chaotic poem about English pronunciation
Play videoA poem using several loanwords, obsolete words, different spellings, and standardized pronunciation. Makes claims about speaking English "better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world," but only uses "standard" British accent. Reminds me of that song from My Fair Lady.
Val Systems: Pretentious /ae/ hole
The blog post provides a clip from the popular NPR show "Car Talk, with two native Bostonians as hosts. In the clip, one hosts relates being teased by his daughter for his trap-bath split, saying it sounds pretentious.