Is it what the English professors at the great universities use?
Is it what the dictionaries recommend?
Is it what the people use in Cambridge or Oxford? Or in London or in New York?
Is it what your teachers taught you to use in high school and college?
Or is it perhaps, what the moderators teach you here on this Forum?
My point of view
– It is a combination, in part, of all of them.
– Or it is the one used by the great majority of educated people throughout the English speaking countries.
A few minutes ago I read an answer to a question that I had posted at another helpline: How does one pronounce “dour.”
There are at least two accepted ways. The online teacher suggested that one rhyme it with “flower.” So that is how I shall pronounce it from now on.
Here in California, we pronounce the “r” in “car.” I hear that in New York, they drop the “r.” So I guess it sounds something like: I drive my “ka” to work.
As you know, Americans pronounce the words differently from the way British people pronounce the same words. By the way, I have read that the Queen
now pronounces some of her words differently from the way she pronounced them when she was younger. Why? Some people say that she does not want
to sound too posh. That is, she does not want her people to think that she is trying to be “better” than they.