The things you learn: aftermath

[pne]

Listening to this clip on YouTube, right at the beginning she said aftermath with a BATH vowel in the final syllable.

Huh! I had always used TRAP there, as in maths. (But then, I’m not sure whether I’ve ever heard the word spoken before.)

Looked it up on dictionary.com; its house dictionary only has TRAP for the final vowel, but further down, the World English Dictionary has BATH (i.e. it lists both the TRAP and the PALM vowel, and in fact the PALM one first).

Since for me, BATH goes with PALM, perhaps I should use BATH in aftermath as well.

Comments

[evilsusan]

It depends on who you want to sound like. I say it like it's said here, which is how even some Brits might say it, but if you go all Londony, it's going to sound more like your reporter in the clip. There are Brits I can understand and some I can't. So many accents.

[sollers]

It's a geographical and class thing; I say it like the reporter.

By contrast, my Northern neighbour says BATH like TRAP.

Accents (and dialects) are wonderful things. Some people say "our" like ARE; some say it as in COW UH; and some don't say it at all, they say "us" as their ancestors did a thousand and a half years ago.

[ewx]

“Aftermath” goes with “trap” for me but “bath” with ”palm”. So I’m not convinced that the TRAP/BATH/PALM division actually captures all the variation even within England alone.