Besides "colonel", can you think of some other examples of words that do not have letter "r" but (American) people pronounce with retroflection of the tongue?

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blue_beetle

8 Okt 2021

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Englisch (US)

@prochesseur Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other words like that. I think it's an anomaly.

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blue_beetle

8 Okt 2021

Englisch (US)

I believe colonel is a strange case, where the word was introduced into English with the "r" sound. So the pronunciation has remained the same, but for whatever reason the spelling was changed. Probably because it was the French spelling. Maybe the spelling makes more sense in French?

I wish I could help more but honestly I don't know what retroflection of the tongue means, so I'm not sure what other examples would be.

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ChinglishTeadent

8 Okt 2021

Vereinfachtes Chinesisch (China)
Traditionelles Chinesisch (Taiwan) Fast fließend

@blue_beetle Thanks. By "retroflection of the tongue", I mean the American way of pronouncing words with letter "r" (in contrast to the British way). For example, "father" and "farther" can be homophonous in British English, but they are not in American English, which is what I refer to. Generally, whenever there is an "r" in the word, Americans will retroflex the tongue, making an "er" sound, but when there isn't, it's wrong to give the "er" sound both in British accent and in American accent (e.g. Some Chinese read "famous" as "famers" and they believe this is American-style reading, while in fact, this is not.). "Colonel" is an exception to this rule. I was asking whether there are other examples.