The SHTRONG survey: RESULTS

Thanks to the thousands around the world who have taken my surveys on 'tr', 'dr' and 'str'!

The surveys are still active for those who haven't yet taken them:

0:00 Introduction
1:43 Assimilation and change
3:51 Size of the dataset
4:25 Train Changing results
5:19 Scottish interlude
8:20 Drum Majoring results
8:34 Word-form effects
11:38 Street Shopping results
13:28 Practical advantage
14:20 CUBE dictionary

[DrGeoffLindsey]

'Beetroot' is used much less frequently in N. America than in UK/Aus. It's frequently used words that lose their boundaries.

[PhinClio]

US Americans don't generally use the word "beetroot" at all. We simply call the vegetable "beets." I wonder whether, if you get a larger data set, Canadian speakers and US speakers might show different patterns on this word.

[ccompass]

Chremendous as always! Happy 2025, sir!

[NancyKondrat]

It’s interesting to note how common it is to see elementary classroom walls with alphabet posters where the letter D depicts a drum and the letter T shows a train. If we are trying to help students make letter-sound associations, we should use different examples, like ‘dog’ and ‘tent’, so we don’t end up saying things like “D says /d/ like jrum”

[jameslutz]

My favorite thing is how Dr. Lindsey goes out of his way to find video examples for EVERY phonetic phenomenon he discusses, leading him to include a video of somebody{s uncle talking about beetroots which sounds like it was recorded with a potato and filmed through a rutabaga XD

[arjc]

In my accent (Midwestern USA), there are no tongue touches in the word beetroot at all, so there isn’t any alveolar consonant to undergo train changing. Our syllable-final /t/ is a glottal stop. (We also don’t really have the word “beetroot”, they’re just beets, so the “bedroom” exception isn’t likely to occur.)

[BS-vxdg]

Wow, as someone who first notice train changing almost 50 years ago, I thought I was pretty in tune with how I _actually_ pronounce words. And in fact, I can still categorically state that I simply do _not_ engage in drum majoring. *However* I never noticed until listening to the video that I *do* put an "sh-" at the beginning of strong. Which means that I mis-identified my pronunciation on all the relevant words on the survey.* My point is that I think your survey results are vulnerable because *they rely on self-awareness*, which I think many (maybe most) people don't have. As a Midwesterner in my 60s, I have _long_ been aware of train changing, not only my own but everyone around me. But when I bring this up I consistently find that *_they_* can't hear it; they even deny it when it is pointed out. And thus I wonder if the increasing number of self-confessed train changers (and drum majors) amongst the young are not reflective of a new trend, but in fact just reflect greater self-awareness.

* _I have not yet had time to figure out with certainty what I do to the sound between the "s" and the "r", but I will be paying attention now_

[StrivetobeDust]

For nearly all of my 33 years of teaching English in Japan I taught the /chr/ -/jr/ pronunciations. I'm now 61 and retired and had no idea that any native speaker spoke it any other way. I'm originally from southwest Pennsylvania.

[peterdowden]

I adore "storm chrooper"! ❤️ My young child once wrote "squirt" as "sgwert" . I think children's spelling might be a source of data to study

[bernmahan]

I once was chatting to an old Irishman in Co Mayo. We were talking about choking on fishbones. He literally used the phrase "throat in me trout" for "trout in my throat"!

[pidgeotroll]

I was listening while on a walk, and when the ad popped up that started with the copy “I’m getting back on “ch”rack” I didn’t realize it wasn’t an example you purposefully included of tr->chr!

[softy]

The "chrain" is _so_ popular among the younger generations blows my mind. I expected it to be around the 50% mark. 90% is crazy!

[ListianChrindner]

I am German and have always taken great pride in my English skills. However, after watching this video, I’ve come to realise that my command of the language is probably more akin to that of native speakers over the age of 60 :D

[kered]

I pointed out this pronunciation in an intro (inchro) linguistics class in college, and was surprised to find that even though many students in the class agreed with it, my professor seemed skeptical that we were analyzing it correctly, and that I couldn't find any references to this sound change on Wikipedia. I don't out of nearly universal among my age group (now mid 30s), and I'm glad to see that someone is giving it the attention that it deserves.

[kayvan]

Being from the US Midwest, beetroot definitely has glottal stops where the t's should be, so no chraining there.

Where I hear similar change, though, is in "front room, " a common synonym for "living room." I remember thinking my aunt had a "french room" when I was young.

[Loxalair]

T is so versatile. It can sound like t as in tea, it can sound like ch as in train, and it can sound like d as in water. What a good and not at all confusing letter

[aimeerivers]

i love how you observe and report without any judgement. language and pronunciation are fascinating!

[daudzoss]

When I was about 10 in the early 1980s, my father who grew up in the Midwest of the US told me that English was a Germanic language but I heard and processed that statement as: "English is a dramatic language"

[yanathecontrarian]

It would be interesting (although of course logistically hard) to see the relationship between what people self-report and what they actually say. For example, how big is the difference between the people who think they say shtrong and the people who think they say s[dj]rong?

[weaseldale]

Just found your channel in the past week, what a treat to get this type of video....