CONSONANTS DROPPED

R-dropping: Some standard accents of English such as American are ‘rhotic’ in that they have /r/ before consonants bard is /ba:rd/ or before silence fur / /. Other accents of English such as British RP are ‘non-rhotic’, in that they do not have /r/ in these two positions, i.e. bard /ba:d/, fur /f /. R-dropping is a marker of low status in the USA and lack of r-dropping is a marker of rural accents in England.

H-dropping: H-dropping refers to the presence or absence of /h/ in the pronunciation of certain words where the letter “h” is present in the spelling, as in Harry versus ‘Arry. In French h-dropping is part of the standard language; in English English, but not American, h-dropping is a strong social marker of low status in words like high hat or hit.