[I just posted this on Wheel of Fortune's contact page.]
On yesterday's show one puzzle included the word "embroidered." An African American woman solved the puzzle but pronounced this word so that it sounded like "emroided." I believe that this happened because her underlying dialect (African American English) doesn't allow [r] before a consonant. Pat Sajak (or the judges?) ruled it a "wrong pronunciation." I believe this was a very serious error, not only in that the couple missed getting the round but also that a legitimate variety of English was dismissed as "wrong." Her rendering was approximately [ɪmˡbrɔɪdəd].
I wonder whether someone from Boston, who might have pronounced it similarly, would also have been declared "wrong."
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
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