# Pronunciation: Scarce



## Darkicity

The other day someone corrected my pronunciation because I said scarce making it rhyme with farce, he said I was wrong. I seem to think that is normal to pronounce it the way I did though, in some parts of the USA, or am I wrong?


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## sdgraham

Nope, sorry.

If you look at scarce in our dictionary, there's an icon that will provide audio.

Forvo.com is also useful: How to pronounce scarce in English - Definition and synonyms of scarce in English


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## JamesM

I do think there are regional pronunciations that would come close to rhyming with "farce", but it's definitely a distinct minority.


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## Darkicity

sdgraham said:


> Nope, sorry.
> 
> If you look at scarce in our dictionary, there's an icon that will provide audio.
> 
> Forvo.com is also useful: How to pronounce scarce in English - Definition and synonyms of scarce in English


Yes, I know the common pronuncuation. I was wondering if it can be said the way I said it and still be correct in a certain region in the us


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## Darkicity

A


JamesM said:


> I do think there are regional pronunciations that would come close to rhyming with "farce", but it's definitely a distinct minority.


Any idea to which region they pertain? Midwest? Northeast?


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## boozer

The farce-rhyming pronunciation would make me think you were trying to say 'scars', which is almost the same except for the final /z/ sound. In order to get the word 'scarce', I need it to rhyme with 'where'. Incidentally, the noun 'scarcity' is pronounced your way. Could it be that you obtained your pronunciation by reverse-engineering the 'scarcity' pronunciation?


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## Darkicity

boozer said:


> The farce-rhyming pronunciation would make me think you were trying to say 'scars', which is almost the same except for the final /z/ sound. In order to get the word 'scarce', I need it to rhyme with 'where'.


Well the hard -ce- sound kinda remedies that. There are places in the US where people really pronounce the -ar- like Arree you or caaarrrr. I think maybe in Winsconsin


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## JamesM

boozer said:


> The farce-rhyming pronunciation would make me think you were trying to say 'scars', which is almost the same except for the final /z/ sound. In order to get the word 'scarce', I need it to rhyme with 'where'. Incidentally, the noun 'scarcity' is pronounced your way. Could it be that you obtained your pronunciation by reverse-engineering the 'scarcity' pronunciation?



In the U.S. 'scarce' and 'scarcity' both have the 'air' sound in the middle, not the 'ar' sound (as in 'farce'), except for certain fairly rare dialects.


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## JamesM

Darkicity said:


> A
> 
> Any idea to which region they pertain? Midwest? Northeast?



No, not really.  I've only heard it very rarely.  In my memory it goes with the same regional pronunciation that turns 'powerful' into 'pahrful'.  There used to be a western U.S. pronunciation that made 'scarce' rhyme with 'fierce' (as if it were spelled 'skierce'). That's almost extinct, as far as I know.


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## Darkicity

JamesM said:


> No, not really.  I've only heard it very rarely.  In my memory it goes with the same regional pronunciation that turns 'powerful' into 'pahrful'.  There used to be a western U.S. pronunciation that made 'scarce' rhyme with 'fierce' (as if it were spelled 'skierce'). That's almost extinct, as far as I know.


Oh ok, I guess I am in a dying minority then, thanks.


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## boozer

You must be right, James. I have now checked here and there and it appears that the nount, too, ought to be scare-city, although I have always known it as scar-city


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## natkretep

Whenever I hear /skɑːs/ or /skɑːsli/ (for _scarce_ and _scarcely_) they are from a non-native speaker of English. I remember a very fluent German speaker, and you would think he was Southern English from the way he talked. However, these words gave him away. Think 'scare' and add an /s/ sound.


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## RedwoodGrove

There might be a few thousand native people at best in the US who pronounce it as sk-ahr-ss. I think there's an island off the coast of North Carolina that preserves a 17th century dialect. Go to the British Isles if you want that. Here in the US it is sk-air-ss.


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## sound shift

I wonder where in the British Isles you have in mind, since it is sk-air-ss there too.


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## Oddmania

I found a _square-nurse_ merger (or "_fair-fur_ merger") on Wikipedia, reportedly occuring in some accents of Liverpool, Dublin and Belfast, meaning that some speakers might pronounce _scare _as */s-curse/.* I think /s-car-ss/ is a long shot, though. That would mean you're merging _bare _and _bar_.


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## Edinburgher

boozer said:


> the noun, too, ought to be scare-city, although I have always known it as scar-city


Could you have been subconsciously mixing it up with _sparse_ and _sparsity_?  Perhaps _sparsity_ sounds so odd that people prefer _sparseness_.


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## Glenfarclas

Darkicity said:


> Oh ok, I guess I am in a dying minority then, thanks.



But you don't speak that dialect (if it even exists).  You're just in the much larger group of "people who mispronounce some words they're not familiar with."


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## RedwoodGrove

sound shift said:


> I wonder where in the British Isles you have in mind, since it is sk-air-ss there too.



P'rhaps it is in Ireland where they are speaking that way.


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## Loob

RedwoodGrove said:


> P'rhaps it is in Ireland where they are speaking that way.


What makes you say that, Red?


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## Florentia52

Darkicity said:


> Well the hard -ce- sound kinda remedies that. There are places in the US where people really pronounce the -ar- like Arree you or caaarrrr. I think maybe in Winsconsin


Not in my part of Wisconsin.


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## Parla

In my experience, the first part of "scarce" and the first syllable of "scarcity" both sound the same as "scare": "scare" + soft "s" and "scare" + "city".


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## boozer

Edinburgher said:


> Could you have been subconsciously mixing it up with _sparse_ and _sparsity_?  Perhaps _sparsity_ sounds so odd that people prefer _sparseness_.


God only knows, Ed.  What I am sure of is that even when I have actually heard people say scare-city, I have thought, "super-consciously", that they are wrong.  'Sparsity' sounds good to me so maybe there is a grain of truth in your guess.


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## Darkicity

I think maybe I got it confused with sparse


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## RedwoodGrove

Loob said:


> What makes you say that, Red?



Just my impression. I used to work with a woman from Dublin who said "lahrn" for "learn".


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## PaulQ

RedwoodGrove said:


> I used to work with a woman from Dublin who said "lahrn" for "learn".


Also said similarly in parts of the Midlands and North of England particularly by older people. However, "scarss" does not exist as a pronunciation of *scarce*.


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## mtm_16

Sorry to reopen this. . . but I moved to Michigan not long ago and a friend recently tried correcting my pronunciation of the word scarce (hence, why I'm here). I'm from North of Boston and pronounce scarce in a way that rhymes with farce. I believe this is entirely normal in the area I'm from.


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## RedwoodGrove

The majority of USns probably pronounce the vowel sound like "hair' or "bear".  I do admire the way people in Massachusetts speak. I once called a ship's chandlery there and couldn't believe the man's accent.


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## shimma

JamesM said:


> No, not really.  I've only heard it very rarely.  In my memory it goes with the same regional pronunciation that turns 'powerful' into 'pahrful'.  There used to be a western U.S. pronunciation that made 'scarce' rhyme with 'fierce' (as if it were spelled 'skierce'). That's almost extinct, as far as I know.



you're right, James. I'm listening to this audio for TOEFL essential words whose narrator pronounces "ar" in "scarce" like "ar" in "car". He also pronounces "powerful" in a way close to what you mentioned.




mtm_16 said:


> Sorry to reopen this. . . but I moved to Michigan not long ago and a friend recently tried correcting my pronunciation of the word scarce (hence, why I'm here). I'm from North of Boston and pronounce scarce in a way that rhymes with farce. I believe this is entirely normal in the area I'm from.



and Thank you mtm_16.


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## PaulQ

JamesM said:


> There used to be a western U.S. pronunciation that made 'scarce' rhyme with 'fierce' (as if it were spelled 'skierce').


It has just struck me that, in BE, the Ulster/Northern Irish accent does the same thing - was it imported?


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## natkretep

You're talking about the vowel in FACE in Belfast /fiəs/? The thing is that this represents the FACE vowel rather than the SQUARE vowel.


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## PaulQ

I wonder if I am... it's possible... I was recalling the speech patterns of an Ulsterman I knew some years back - I could certainly hear him, in my imagination/memory, saying "ski-erce" as it were.

Where Panjandrum when you want him?


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## DennisBarzanoff

As far as logic goes, "scarce" should be pronounced /skɑɹs/ or /skɑ:s/, because A is followed by two consonants and it is a universal rule that two consonants follow a short sound in English. 
The only exceptions are "g" and "l" and an ending "r", which do not count towards the doubling rule and it is full of words like "table" (for which A is interpreted as "tabe") and "fragrance". 
So in that word the only thing the silent E does is make C pronounced /s/.
This is even confirmed by other structurally similar words like "farce" that have the logical pronunciation.


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## ewie

Logic has nothing to do with it.


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## Riyan

DennisBarzanoff said:


> As far as logic goes, "scarce" should be pronounced /skɑɹs/ or /skɑ:s/, because A is followed by two consonants and *it is a universal rule that two consonants follow a short sound in English.*


The emboldened part is infelicitous. It doesn't hold true for many words in Southern British English (and presumably many other Englishes).
See, for example, fast -> /fɑːst/ -- two consonants yet long vowel.

Also paint -> /peɪnt/ (diphthong) but /rɛnt/ (short vowel).


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## Keith Bradford

@Dennis Barzanoff.  The trouble with saying "it is a universal rule..." about anything in the world is that someone only has to provide one exception and you look a fool.

And the trouble with saying "it is a universal rule in English" is that you look a fool straight away.  There are no "rules" in English; there is the consensus of educated native speakers.  Some teachers of English as a foreign language call this "rules" because that's easier to teach to young learners.  A wise teacher, when caught out later, will say "Ah, yes, but when I told you that I had my fingers crossed behind my back".


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## Edinburgher

Keith Bradford said:


> "Ah, yes, but when I told you that I had my fingers crossed behind my back".


There is no need for finger-crossing.  Most rules have exceptions.  It's just that in English there are an awful lot of exceptions.  They are, one might say, the rule.

Example:  All month names have an 'r' in them.  The only exceptions are May, June, July, and August.  At least there are more with than without.


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## dojibear

DennisBarzanoff said:


> As far as logic goes, "scarce" should be pronounced /skɑɹs/ or /skɑ:s/


No, that is logic *plus* a rule about how written words "should be pronounced". But there are no such rules! Word pronunciation is *never* based on word spelling. It's the other way around.

Spelling is based on "the way words *were *pronounced, hundreds of years ago". The pronunciation can change, without the spelling changing.

For example we spell the word "knife" but pronounce it "nif", as if E and K were silent. Well, many years ago the E and K were pronounced. The pronunciation of the word changed (it is a living language) but the spelling didn't. To expain the difference, someone made up a "writing rule" about "silent E".


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## DennisBarzanoff

All everyone wants is consistency and this word is crippling the language by being different than the other ones. It's true, the rules came after the spelling, but the pronunciation can change anytime and fix this inconsistency


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## dojibear

DennisBarzanoff said:


> the pronunciation can change anytime


Only if hundreds of millions of people agree to change it. 

I don't think they will do that. Not unless Dennis has a lot of influence!


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## DennisBarzanoff

Riyan said:


> The emboldened part is infelicitous. It doesn't hold true for many words in Southern British English (and presumably many other Englishes).
> See, for example, fast -> /fɑːst/ -- two consonants yet long vowel.
> 
> Also paint -> /peɪnt/ (diphthong) but /rɛnt/ (short vowel).


That's a completely different thing. Isn't everything about patterns in English. "fast" is a pattern and follows the same inconsistent British rule before "st", "sk" and others, e.g. "past", "last", "ask", "task"...
"paint" has the "ai" pattern and most vowel has a pattern that can make it long no matter what.
"i" has the "igh" pattern as in "light"
"a" has the "ay" pattern as in "play"
"e" has the "ee" pattern as in "been"
"o" has the "oa" pattern as in "boat"
Some other sounds have a pattern too, such as "oo" being /u:/. This has allowed for phonetic transcriptions.
This sound ( /ɛɹ/ or /ɛ:/ ) has the "air" pattern and could be spelled "scairce". Either the pronunciation or the spelling has to change.

Point is everything has something to back it up and this word does not. Don't take my words literally


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## dojibear

For a native Bulgarian, your written English is very good. It is almost like a native speaker.

As a native speaker, I almost always learned to say a word (and its meaning) before seeing the word written. So I think of them as "writing rules". As someone learning English as a foreign language, your experience was different. So you may think of them as "rules for how to pronounce written words", and are bothered by exceptions to those rules.

I agree that "crippling the language" is a ridiculously large exaggeration. There are zero people who "struggle to use English properly" because this word doesn't fit some rule. That's my 2 cents.


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## Keith Bradford

Dennis, you might as well go out into the fields and shout at an oak tree: "Why are your leaves such an irregular shape?  Why don't they comply with the rule that all leaves should be leaf-shaped?  The farmers should fix this inconsistency by going out with scissors and cutting off the lobes."

That's not the way the English language has worked for the past 1300 years, and the people who have tried to "correct" it have only succeeded in making things worse.  Since Bulgarian is as old as English, I have no doubt it has similar anomalies.

Treat language as a naturally evolving phenomenon, and not as a mechanical construct.  You'll sleep easier at night.


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## kentix

Patterns are often very useful in English. But they aren't rules. They only take you part way.


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## natkretep

dojibear said:


> For example we spell the word "knife" but pronounce it "nif", as if E and K were silent. Well, many years ago the E and K were pronounced. The pronunciation of the word changed (it is a living language) but the spelling didn't. To expain the difference, someone made up a "writing rule" about "silent E".


I agree with the main point made. Just a minor point here. I don't think the final <e> in _knife _was pronounced. The silent <e> was introduced through French spelling rules and came in during the Middle English period (c 1100-1450). In Old English (c 450-1100), the word was spelt _cnif_. The letter <i> would have been pronounced like how we say 'ee' today. Old English spelling was closer to the pronunciation.


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## meadmaker

Darkicity said:


> The other day someone corrected my pronunciation because I said scarce making it rhyme with farce, he said I was wrong. I seem to think that is normal to pronounce it the way I did though, in some parts of the USA, or am I wrong?


In my father's family, we pronounce scarce like farce. They were Germans in Wisconsin (having arrived from Germany in the mid-1800s.) The dialect makes sense to me since the German accent (at least in our family) turned the long A sound into ahhh.


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## Keith Bradford

meadmaker said:


> In my father's family, we pronounce scarce like farce. They were Germans in Wisconsin ...



We don't need to look to German immigration into Wisconsin to explain this pronunciation.  In Shakespeare's time in Britain, *scarce *was pronounced /skɑ:ɹs/ rhyming with *farce *(David Crystal, _The Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakesperian Pronunciation_, OUP 2016). 

It's the modern pronunciation that's the interloper. I would guess the change happened as a result of snobbery in the 18th century, as so many vowel-changes did, but I don't know the details.


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