Does swore rhyme with war?

PandaMan said:

True. I have lots of relatives in the Boston area. None of them speak with that strong of an accent. At least not as strong as President John F. Kennedy or his brothers did.

Click to expand...

That accent saved us a speeding ticket.

My husband and I were in Arizona, many years ago, passing through a reservation on the way from Phoenix to Flagstaff. My husband has a heavy foot and we were pulled over by a native American cop, a big guy, long braids, gruff, no-nonsense fellow.

He asked my husband if he knew we were traveling about 75mph (in a rented car) and of course my husband politely said, no, he didn't, and then he apologized and waited for the lecture/ticket/whatever was coming next.

But before seeing my husband's MA license, the officer said, 'You sound just like the Kennedys. Are you from Massachusetts?' He then went on to say what a big fan he was of the Kennedys and my husband and he chatted a bit. The officer let us go with just a warning.

Had anyone told me that we sounded like the Kennedys...

News to me, but I guess we do.

I'm from MA. Swore sounds like core, more, whore and wore.

However, we don't pronounce war as wore. I suppose you might get away with it elsewhere, but in but I've been saying the words aloud for a while and nope, I don't hear them that way.

But we don't pronounce roof as hoof either. A dog goes 'roof.' But a roof is on a house.

jaksen said:

I'm from MA. Swore sounds like core, more, whore and wore.

However, we don't pronounce war as wore. I suppose you might get away with it elsewhere, but in but I've been saying the words aloud for a while and nope, I don't hear them that way.

But we don't pronounce roof as hoof either. A dog goes 'roof.' But a roof is on a house.

Click to expand...

Well . . . there are two ways to pronounce hoof, as well. Hoof with an "ewf" sound or a longer "uf" kind of sound. Roof, however, in my world is only pronounce "rewf" and not "ruff".

FWIW, I pronounce all the words from original post the same--war, swore, core, bore/boar, more, sore/soar. . . . I'm from the Mid-Atlantic with a mother from NJ (but she doesn't have a NJ accent, I hasten to add).

OT, but this thread makes me think of the old song, "War. What is it good for? (Absolutely nothing!)"

Back when I could hear, Bugs Bunny often commented, "Of COE-ass you know, this means WOE-ah!"

Got my brothers and I to giggling insanely every time.