oh boy this is a can of worms. We have been studying that question specifically because of chant for years, and there is not really an easy answer. Often times, what we have discovered is, you have to take into consideration the general pronunciation + context + fidelity to music + the way the music hits a word. In some cases its better to adapt the word to the music, in other cases its better to adapt the music to the word. But my honest opinion is that you are never going to make everyone happy, pronunciation can be so different even within a single country.

Well, in practice, a lot of it has to do with experience/knowledge/intuition of how certain English vowels/diphthongs shade pitch (particularly flattening, esp in descent) - which varies according to dialect, as it were; a choral director may then engage in open vowel surgery with the choristers, and repeat as necessary. (In the USA, at least most native eastern New Englanders are somewhat practiced or at least familiar with non-rhoticism and happy not to over pronounce their Rs (and thereby screw up pitch) in that harsh/grating way common in some other parts of the USA* - they just have to remember not to conserve said Rs and drop them inadvertently at the end of terminal vowel somewhere else in a fit of absent-minded frugality. Example from Matthew 2: Judah ~ Jyooder....)


* Indelible memory of my sister's recounting of her first encounter with the family of her second husband of unhappy memory, a family from the uppermost part of the Great Plains: "They really pronounce their ARRRRRRZZZ."

Yes that's what I do, should have just taken a moment to be more specific. It's nice to know it's an accepted rule though.

At Jahdin Mahsh the hahkih’s cry
announces that a sale is nigh!
Awake, and hahkin for he brings
glahd tidings of the sales of things!

Tune: WINCHESTER NEW

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Marsh

@Liam, oh yes. We make the muffins (at least the recipe claimed to be from the bakery). My family, including one member who moved to Boston as a young adult and spent a decade there before moving on, knows it well. I am too young (well, I guess as a baby I could have gone) but I have been to the AMC in Framingham at least once (probably twice or more, actually) near Shoppers World.

(Is it E-ville or E-vull?)

This is precisely the problem I have. I got caught up on “divine”. I always hear people say “dee-vine”, but my gut feeling was that was wrong, but then it’s, is it “duh-vine” or “di-vine”?

in an almost too on-the-nose eastern/central Massachusetts accent, including “Our opening hymn is ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing,’ number XX, that’s “Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Did it sound like this?
https://youtu.be/pB2l6UESSyo?si=M86Y8Se7oM0qiCyO
Those h’s and r’s are something else. Bonus is the pronunciation of Bethlehem.

Rvisser states the rule quite correctly. My favorite two examples are thinkers, though: "the universe" "the hour".

I used the Jordan Marsh blueberry muffin recipe yesterday. However, I substituted wineberries for blueberries. Wineberries, which are red and grow wild, are a little smaller than raspberries and are in season here in eastern Massachusetts right now. I've tried many blueberry muffin recipes, and I found this to be the best.

BTW, once, after Cardinal Cushing had recited the rosary on the radio, many ladies called the radio station immediately afterwards complaining that on one decade the beloved Cardinal only said nine Hail Marys! How could have he missed one?

The allophones of R in English language speech:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_/r/

To the original question, some good manuals are The Singer's Manual of English Diction by Madeleine Marshall, and Diction for Singers by Joan Wall et al. Modify according to your own context and well-developed sense of beauty and taste.

Exactly, on both counts.

My own maternal ancestors hail with certainty from a part of Ireland that is if not entirely unknown in the U.S. it’s so unfamiliar that kids with more stereotypical Irish names would think that it wasn’t Irish on St Patrick’s Day. Which, fine, kids are not that smart or whatever. Then I met a guy from that area and told him this. He was like, what’s the name. So I told him. He said that it was very common there lol.

The rule is based on the sound of the first letter. If the letter is a vowel, but it makes the sound of a consonant, the is pronounced “thuh” whereas if it begins the the sound of a vowel, it’s pronounced thee.

That rule was taught in grade school. Has education diminished so much that pronunciation of English is no longer a subject?

Nor was I, and the curriculum and faculty of my public school district back in that time (1966-73) was tops (our public schools were *much* better than our parochial schools; my parents were delighted to be able to send me entirely through our public school system). English language instruction did not include that level of *elocution*.

I first encountered the rule when I started singing in choruses/choirs as a young adult.

So, your English language learning included declamation/elocution? (My parents' generation *before* WW2 had that.) My school district started mandatory foreign language instruction at age 9 (which was invaluable), and also had a rigorous 3-year Humanities alternative to English/Social Studies in high school.

@dad29 No, education has not diminished that far, it has diminished far beyond that.

People of all education levels use fillers or discourse markers; you need not just education but practice to minimize their usage and to avoid them entirely.

I definitely have had conversations like that, but education is not exactly where I’d place the blame.

(FWIW, the Church batted 0.00% with retaining my 4 older sibs who went through Catholic grammar school and who left way faster than the 2 younger sibs who went K-12 through public school....)

fillers combined with incorrect word order

I'm pretty sure nobody diagrams sentences anymore, which may be why so many news stories online have clauses that do not modify the noun the author thought they were modifying.