Subject: re : 8 . 1205 , disc : british < a >

peter tan wrote : it seems to me that the evidence for ' aggressive ' nativisation / anglicisation in southern british english as opposed to american english is not clear . in my last lengthy message i did not react to this issue . my reaction is that i agree with peter . i do n't know if some of the unclarity has to do with different historical periods which differentiate british and american english , or different cultural domains , e . g . , music ( e . g . , italian terms like stacatto and the others i mentioned in the last message ) vs . foods ( e . g . , pasta - - and more recently a bunch of mexican foods , e . g . , taco , tamale , etc etc ) - - or both etc etc . however , reversals of the ' agressive ' southern brit expectation include some of the commonest and widely known foods , such as " tomato " and " banana " where undoubtedly the southern brit " back a " pronunciation is closer to the source than the american pronunciation ( lengthened and raised " tomato " as in " day " and " mate " ) and " banana " rhyming in american english with " anna " which has " front a " , not " back a " as in the " continental " european pronunciation of the same name . " tomato " , of course , is perhaps the earliest " mexican " food to become a widespread word in english . as for jim fiedelholz 's observation on brit " nicaragyua " , also striking is brit ( and canadian ) " bilingyual " . at least " bilingyual " could be considered conservative if it is modelled on the french pronunciation with a front labio-velar " w " , as in " figyure " ( for those of you who do n't pronounce it as " figger " ) . - - benji
