British vs. American Pronunciations of “Buoy”

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Hi. How are you? My name is Nicole, and I’m calling from Indianapolis.

Great. Well, what would you like to talk with us about?

Well, my husband and I have been in dispute about the word buoy.

He is from England, and he is convinced that the way that we should say this word is buoy.

And I am from New England, and I disagree. I think it’s buoy.

So we were hoping for some clarification and maybe to avoid a divorce.

To avoid.

You know, we usually ask what the stakes are, you know, if it’s washing dishes for a week or something.

But this is, Grant, this may be the highest stakes we’ve ever.

We’re talking tea in the harbor and the whole thing, right?

Yes, yes.

B-U-O-Y, right?

Yes, yes.

Okay, tell me, how often are you encountering this word in your daily life?

Well, yeah, not as often as you would think, but we do like to bring it up with each other, probably partly because of the accents.

Yeah.

So we were visiting my family in New Hampshire and went to the seacoast, and on the restroom doors, they had B-U-O-Y for the gents, and then on the ladies, they had gulls, G-U-L-L-S.

So this is where Dominic said that he’s like, look, it’s boys and gulls.

And I said, no, it’s buoys and gulls.

So he accosted a stranger to try to get somebody on his side.

And the stranger agreed with me.

So it’s just been heated ever since.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, goodness.

I bet this is a daily curse.

I bet this isn’t the only word, right?

This isn’t the only cross-linguistic dispute here.

No, it is not.

His argument, which I really struggle to come up with a defense against, is when you say the word buoyant, you don’t say buoyant.

So I get a bit sheepish at that point.

Buoyant and buoyancy and life buoy soap.

That’s right.

We don’t say buoyant and buoyancy and life buoy soap.

No, much to my chagrin.

But that’s okay.

There are lots of words that don’t behave in pattern.

English isn’t consistent at all.

It wasn’t a built language.

It’s an accreted language, so nobody planned it.

It just kind of, you know, happened.

You’ve come across one of those real nice differences between UK and US English.

It bears repeating here that UK English isn’t the supreme form of English.

And there isn’t just one UK English.

As soon as people left those shores for foreign shores, they started creating new varieties of English, and so did we.

So their English has changed as much as ours has.

So I’m not going to talk in particular about this word, but it’s true.

Almost everyone there pronounces the word B-U-O-Y as boy, although some say it as boy, almost as if there’s a W after the B, although it’s less common.

And many Americans, although not all Americans, say buoy, and some say boy.

So it’s just an American way of saying it.

And it’s probably an inheritance from history where we kept an older pronunciation of the word that they dropped.

It’s probably as simple as that.

Okay.

I like to tell him that, you know, when people came over and settled in New England, that we got the language, but then we’ve evolved it the correct way.

More evolved.

Maybe a better way to put it is that we’ve had influences that they haven’t had.

So a lot of cognates, that is words that are very similar to buoy or buoy, exist in many European languages, including French, Spanish, Dutch, and German, which have left their own imprints on American English.

And I’m not sure of the history of this word in American English.

It’s possible that our pronunciation of the word is influenced from those other languages in a way that UK English is not.

Okay.

And it’s possible that we retained a regional pronunciation of the word that has long since been dropped in the UK.

You know, an English regional or British regional pronunciation that the UK dropped.

And that happens a lot.

So there’s no question of right or wrong here.

It’s what was retained or what was created.

So there’s going to be increasing divergence over the centuries.

Eventually, it’ll be like Spanish and Portuguese, I think.

Right.

Yeah, so I think what Grant is saying is that you’re both right and you can stay married.

Brilliant.

Well, that definitely helps.

You’ve got to argue about something else.

Right.

Does he insist on driving on the left-hand side of the road?

Ask him that.

Only after midnight.

I mean, when in Indiana, do like Indianans, right?

Right.

Right?

Do like Hoosiers.

Yes.

Okay.

Stay buoyant.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Yes.

Bye.

We’re buoyed up by your calls, 877-929-9673, or email words@waywordradio.org.