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I just noticed that the word iron is pronounced EYE-URN in standard Englishes instead of what the spelling suggests. I have always been pronouncing it "EYE-RUN" but I just checked its pronunciation and it shocked me a bit.

So in UK English, it is /aɪən/ and in US English, it is /aɪrn/ according to the Cambridge Dictionary.

I know English spelling is not regular and as Ronald Sole said in a comment to my previous question, "Do not expect consistency in the pronunciation of any words in English. You can only look up words to find their provenance as a clue to pronunciation", but I just want to know the reason and cause for this.

Why is it pronounced as EYE-URN (IPA: /aɪən/ and /aɪrn/) but not EYE-RUN (/aɪrən/)?

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    In other words, why is the letter R in "iron" practically silent, and totally absent in British English? – Mari-Lou A Oct 28 '20 at 13:06
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    Years ago I never heard anyone articulate the /r/ in *iron. I first started noticing this on the Internet about 15-20 years ago - initially it mainly seemed to be confined to non-native speakers, but increasingly I hear it nowadays in the native Anglophone scientific community (where the difference between iron* from *ion* might be highly significant, but not necessarily contextually obvious). Before that though, this "confusion" was only relevant in the context of making weak puns alluding to *irony = like iron* (there being no such thing as *iony = like ions*). – FumbleFingers Oct 28 '20 at 13:22
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    English spelling is fun, isn't it? – Void Oct 29 '20 at 02:12
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    My first year as a grad student in the US (Midwest in case it matters) I lived on Ironwood rd. Friendly fellow grad students had to explain to me that it's not EYE-RON. The advice was to imagine it's spelled IORN. That helped me :-) – Jyrki Lahtonen Oct 29 '20 at 09:42
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    Truly, this word should be pronounced as if Apple had started producing former US presidents/bad actors: iRon :-) – Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні Oct 29 '20 at 12:41
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    The "silent R" theory is very regional. Where I come from (Scotland) we prize Rs very highly and always give them the recognition they so richly deserve. If I were to go full Glaswegian on it, I'd pronounce element 26 as Eye-ah-rrun, with (count 'em) three syllables. – Oscar Bravo Oct 29 '20 at 13:28
  • @FumbleFingersReinstateMonica I'm from New Zealand (mostly a very non-rhotic accent) and I make the iron/ion distinction by pronouncing the first like eye-un and the second as eye-on – llama Oct 29 '20 at 14:00
  • @llama: I'm extremely "non-rhotic" myself (not quite "Jonathon Woss", because I'm just a lazy speaker; I don't have a speech impediment), so I might occasionally use that "full vowel or neutral schwa" difference to disambiguate. But even Woss himself could use "eye - wan" and "eye - on" (differentiation based on whether the /w/ is present, rather than the /r/ that he can't pronounce). – FumbleFingers Oct 29 '20 at 14:24
  • I see Wikipedia has quite a lengthy page devoted to *nucular* (derived by "metathesis" from *nuclear, just as some people shift the /r/ in iron* so it comes after the second vowel, not between the vowels). – FumbleFingers Oct 29 '20 at 14:36
  • Some British folk singers will put the R into iron for effect – Neil_UK Oct 29 '20 at 14:56
  • @FumbleFingersReinstateMonica Where are you from? US east coast/mid-Atlantic native, "iron" and "ion" are different-sounding and always have been, with iron having an "rn" sound. – user3067860 Oct 29 '20 at 14:59
  • @user3067860: I'm UK (SE), where the standard pronunciation is just diphthong + schwa + /n/. Some Brits (Scots, especially) include /r/ after the schwa for *iron, so it's not the same as ion*. But by default they're homophones for me. – FumbleFingers Oct 29 '20 at 15:33
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    There's a certain irony here, with another very similar word pronunciation... – Tim Oct 29 '20 at 16:43
  • @FumbleFingersReinstateMonica Well, according to the OED (quoted in my answer), the standard Scottish pronunciation is /ˈaɪrən/ (not /ˈaɪ(ə)rn/). Perhaps this is out of date though? – rjpond Oct 29 '20 at 17:33
  • We say "table" as TAY-Bull, not TA-Bluh (like in French), so this sort of thing happens in English. – Justin Young Oct 29 '20 at 18:01
  • @Mari-LouA "totally absent in British English" is an incorrect assumption! Some North-British dialects do indeed preserve the pronunciation as-spelt. "Almost absent" would be fair. – Rich Oct 29 '20 at 20:27
  • My (British) chem professor pronounced it as "eye-ron". I don't recall the exact part of GB he was from though... – Jerry Coffin Oct 30 '20 at 02:48
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    I have always pronounced it eye ron. But I am not a native speaker of neither dialect. – mathreadler Oct 30 '20 at 10:22
  • @mathreadler same here. I am a non-native and have always pronounced it eye ron. –  Oct 30 '20 at 10:23
  • @rjpond: Because I don't enunciate this /r/ myself, it "means" nothing to me, so I don't really hear it very distinctly anyway. There's no such thing as a "standard Scottish pronunciation" though. But to the extent that changes are afoot - as per my first comment, what I see is many native speakers in the scientific community for whom *iron* and *ion* were previously homophones are starting to enunciate the /r/ to distinguish the former. But maybe this doesn't happen much outside the context of science-based oral presentations (particularly, to international audiences). – FumbleFingers Oct 30 '20 at 10:49
  • As an Australian, I'd say eye-in (and eye-on for ion). But than again we also say Can-bruh for Canberra and Mel-bin for Melbourne :) – David Waterworth Oct 31 '20 at 02:38
  • @FumbleFingersReinstateMonica That is not what the term "non-rhotic" refers to. It refers to dialects of English in which the historical presence of an r at the end of a syllable has become encoded into the sound of the preceding vowel, and the r sound then omitted. Jonathan Ross's pronunciation is a rhotacism, a separate phenomenon, which is that he uses a w-like consonant to pronounce an r, every time it occurs in his (already non-rhotic) pronunciation. – Robert Furber Oct 31 '20 at 06:14
  • @RobertFurber: Yes, I know all that. But it takes a lot of words to say. My speech isn't at all Wossy, but it is kinda the opposite of rhotic (and trilled r's, and other variations) - it's just that my r's are missing or indistinct in almost all contexts. – FumbleFingers Oct 31 '20 at 12:00
  • Good question. However, it isn't ever EYE-URN, but EYE-urn. Without getting too technical, when you place the stress on the first syllable, it is extremely difficult to pronounce the /rə/ sound immediately after /aɪ/. So over time, those pronunciations became prominent. – John Strood Jan 19 '22 at 08:51
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    I think in the scientific circles (of which I'm a part), as @FumbleFingers said, EYE-urn and eye-RUN are acceptable. – John Strood Jan 19 '22 at 08:53
  • Here's a link to several different Scots saying Irn Bru (flavoured fizzy sugar water named by deliberately quirky misspelling of Iron Brew). Personally, I can't hear any of them making any attempt to enunciate any kind of /r/ within the initial diphthong / triphthong before the /n/ of *Irn / Iron*. – FumbleFingers Jan 19 '22 at 12:43

3 Answers3

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TLDR

The pronunciation of 'iron' in standard varieties of English is EYE-URN (BrE: /'aɪən/, AmE: /'aɪrn/) and not EYE-RUN (which is also a common pronunciation of 'iron' in some varieties of English) because of a very common process called Metathesis. It's defined as the transposition/rearrangement of letters, syllables or phonemes (sounds) in a word.

Explanation

There are some other words that show the same change; 'wasp' used to be waps, 'bird' used to be brid and 'horse' used to be hros, but they've changed over time. Why is that?

It's because of a very common process called Metathesis. /'aɪən/ is the metathesised version of (/'aɪrən/). 'Iron' commonly used to be pronounced the way it's spelt (/'aɪrən/), but due to metathesis, its pronunciation became EYE-URN (/'aɪən/). Other words such as horse, bird, third etc., reflect the change in spelling; however, 'iron' doesn't reflect that change probably because metathesis applied to it after the spelling was standardised.

Metathesis:

Metathesis is defined as ’the transposition/rearrangement of letters, syllables or phonemes (sounds) in a word’.

Examples:

  • 'wasp' used to be waps (wæps) [transposition of p and s]
  • 'bird' used to be brid [transposition of i and r]

{Historical Metathesis}


  • 'mix' being pronounced /mɪsk/ rather than /mɪks/ [transposition of k and s]

  • 'desk' being pronounced /dɛks/ rather than /dɛsk/ [transposition of k and s]

  • 'modern' being pronounced /'mɒdɹən/ instead of /ˈmɒd(ə)n/ (US: /ˈmɑː.dɚn/)

  • 'pattern' being pronounced /pætɹən/ instead of /ˈpæt.ən/ (US: /ˈpæɾ.ɚn/)

  • Another famous example from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' is the figure of Caliban whose name originates from a phonological metathesis of /n/ and /l/ in 'cannibal'. [ThoughtCo]

/r/-metathesis

Words having /r/ + vowel sequences are more susceptible to metathesis than others. According to A grammar of Old English Phonology by Richard Hogg, ‘R-metathesis normally occurs when /r/ is followed by a short vowel and a dental or alveolar consonant, usually /n/ or /s/’.

'Iron' is an example of /r/-metathesis. It was probably pronounced /'aɪrən/ (EYE-RUN) at one point, but it got metathesised to /'aɪərn/ (EYE-URN). However, the spelling remained unaffected.

Other examples of metathesis of /r/ include:

  • bird from brid (bridde)
  • third from thridde (ðridde)
  • horse from hros

The silent R in 'iron' in BrE

The reason why the r in 'iron' is absent in British English is because the r is followed by a consonant now (followed by /n/ in /'aɪərn/) and British English is non-rhotic, meaning the r is only pronounced when followed by a vowel. The same thing happened to 'bird', 'horse' and 'third' too (i.e. the r is followed by a consonant, so it's silent).

There are different types of metathesis, 'colonel' (pronounced KE(R)-NUHL /'kɜː(r)nl̩/) can also be said to be a product of metathesis. (See this answer on ELU for the spelling and pronunciation of 'colonel')

According to Wikipedia, the reason for ‘common speech errors’ is also metathesis.
Examples include:

  • perscription for prescription
  • interduce for introduce
  • revelant for relevant
  • foilage and foliage

References:

Void
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    @Void I believe you read the whole history and geography of this thing, before editing the whole answer altogether. I appreciate it. Not many answerers bother changing their answer to provide extra information, especially after their answer is accepted). I learned something new today. Thanks! (By the way, I would like to know, did you go and read The Tempest to find out the analogy?) – Dhanishtha Ghosh Oct 28 '20 at 14:17
  • @Void Oh that's sad. It is a very helpful site. I did not finish reading the whole thing, but it looks quite good. You should consider asking someone why is there a problem adding the link. – Dhanishtha Ghosh Oct 28 '20 at 14:49
  • Another great example of metathesis would be ‘asterisk’. Metathesis of the terminal ‘sk’ is so prevalent in speech in some parts of the world that you will get confused looks from some people if you pronounce it as spelled. – Austin Hemmelgarn Oct 29 '20 at 11:59
  • @AustinHemmelgarn: Yeah. I had included asterisk/asterix in my answer, but then deleted it because one of the members thought it was confusing. (see the edit history.) – Void Oct 29 '20 at 12:01
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    "Mix" is an interesting case, as the verb is a back formation from "mixed", which itself comes (ultimately) from Latin "mixtus", the past participle of "misceo", whose reconstructed Proto-Italic root is *miksko. It looks as though most forms of the Latin verb dropped the initial "k", while the participle dropped the second. – chepner Oct 29 '20 at 13:12
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    It might be useful to separate the examples which are almost entirely historical (wasp, bird, ask) from the ones which are common mistakes or regional variants (mix, desk, modern, pattern). I've never noticed anyone say "misk" or "deks", but have definitely heard "asterix" for "asterisk", which always amuses me as a fan of the comic strip character. – IMSoP Oct 29 '20 at 15:42
  • "used to" maybe should be "commonly used to", or "for the most part, used to". Some current British dialects preserve the older pronunciation, and it's inaccurate to suggest it's gone altogether. Sure, it's "nonstandard", (whatever that means with these languages). – Rich Oct 29 '20 at 20:30
  • @Void - the one that caught my eye is still there... right at your intro :-) ax is common in Yorkshire, and also in American community dialects. – Rich Oct 29 '20 at 20:37
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    Little kids often transpose sounds in long, complicated words. Sometimes I find myself transposing letters when writing, possibly because of thinking in "future" letters and writing them ahead of their correct position. So... may be metathesis results from how brains "normally" work? – Pablo H Oct 30 '20 at 05:54
  • Very interesting answer. +1. ASK - pronounced as ask (short a), or arsk (long a)? And where did that morph from? – Tim Oct 30 '20 at 09:29
  • @Tim: Short a. The long a in British and some other accents is a recent change. Old English had two words for 'ask'; one started with asc and another with acs. – Void Oct 30 '20 at 12:02
  • You forgot "nucular" for "nuclear". – Mark Ransom Oct 30 '20 at 18:05
  • @MarkRansom: I left out many... there are loads of examples :) – Void Oct 30 '20 at 18:08
  • This is well-researched! But looking at older variants in the OED, it seems that metathesis best explains the change in sounds from Old English, īsern > *īsren, a possible form.

    It doesn't say much about this spelling of iron. To be, it seems like somebody just chose the spelling. Here are some variants from Middle English:

    irenn, iren, yren, irenn, eiren, eren, erene, eryn, eyren, heren, heyron, hiron, hyren, hyrene, hyrone, hyryn, ieren, irene, irin, irinn, irren, irun, iryne, iyren, jren, jrenne, jron, yrene, yrin, yroun, yrovn, yrun, yrunn, yryne, yryn, irone, yron, yrone, iron

     – Ted Pal Oct 30 '20 at 18:11
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    don't forget my favorite example of *hross -> hors -> horse – HotelCalifornia Oct 31 '20 at 01:18
  • The sources that I just looked at say that for “wasp” an influence of Latin “vespa” is likely. – Carsten S Oct 31 '20 at 10:31
  • I have updated my question and added "standard Englishes" because many commenters pointed out and I have heard "EYE-RON" being used in many dialects. FWIW, you should also add "standard Englishes" to your answer, –  Oct 31 '20 at 14:06
  • I like this answer, but why is ire pronounced the way it is then? – LawrenceC Nov 03 '20 at 16:46
  • @LawrenceC: Yes.?? It has a diphthong because it's an open-syllable (in BrE). I'm not sure what you're suggesting. – Void Nov 03 '20 at 16:49
  • Iron is basically ire with the silent "e" dropped and "on" attached. – LawrenceC Nov 03 '20 at 17:32
  • I understand that words change over time. What I don't understand is, why do we keep writing them in the old manner? Why don't we write iorn or kernoul? – Christian Vincenzo Traina Nov 11 '20 at 11:07
  • Sorry, I've tried to fix these two links and as [@Kaathe][4] pointed out, [it is still used in some dialects of English][5]. but every time the link disappears. I'm not sure why pasting the new link doesn't work. But I've tried twice, seems to work when I test it, then I close the post and the link is naked again. ??? :( – Mari-Lou A Nov 14 '20 at 19:47
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    That's sad. How many years need to pass before /'aɪərn/ gets metathesized back to /'aɪrən/? – John Strood Jan 19 '22 at 18:06
  • But brood was spared the infamy of becoming boord. It's interesting that this fate can befall one word but not its cognate. Fromage in French comes from formage, also a funny one. – Deipatrous Sep 19 '23 at 09:35
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In some regional accents it is /aɪrən/, but this is rare enough in most regions that people may never have come across it and will consider it an error, so learners aren't advised to pronounce it that way.

In the 15th century, spelling variants included "irn".

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the standard pronunciation shows "loss of the vowel of the second syllable and probably the development of a syllabic nasal... with subsequent loss of the syllabic quality of the nasal and development of a glide vowel between a diphthong and r, although the precise details are uncertain... Pronunciations not reflecting this development survive in regional varieties of English (Yorkshire and Scotland); compare Scottish Standard English /ˈaɪrən/."

rjpond
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    Thank you for revealing the fact that regional accents preserve the "older" pronunciation. Just because they're rare doesn't mean they're absent. – Rich Oct 29 '20 at 20:31
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    I love this answer. It has a lot of explanatory power, and after reading it, the shift in pronunciation looks almost inevitable.

    Start with

    [aɪ rən]. Eventually, the n became syllabic, because that's an easy change that most English speakers wouldn't notice. This becomes

    [aɪr n̩].

    Now the r is in the same syllable as the diphthong aɪ which is hard for a lot of English speakers to prounounce. It's normal to turn aɪr into two syllables as

    [aɪ ər n̩].

    Suddenly there's no need for the syllabic n anymore and it turns into

    [aɪ ərn].

     – Jetpack Oct 29 '20 at 21:37
  • Thanks. It seemed plausible to me too, and the OED cites E. J. Dobson Eng. Pronunc. 1500–1700 (ed. 2, 1968) II. § 328A - although it seems to conflict with the (metathesis) theory in @Void's (excellent) answer (and since 1968 was a while back, it's possible Void's sources represent more recent scholarship). – rjpond Oct 29 '20 at 21:52
  • When sung as two syllables, [e.g. from In the Bleak Midwinter, "Earth stood hard as i-ron", at least to my ear, the "r" should occur earlier in the word than when spoken. Closer to "Eire un" than "I run" or "I earn", but many words shift pronunciation when sung, for a variety of reasons. – supercat Nov 21 '20 at 09:10
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    I'm late to the party, but anyway. About 20 years ago, I was on the bus from Denver to Boulder, Colorado, USA, and the driver called out a stop at the then-new shopping mall, Flatiron Crossing (so named for a local geological formation), saying, "Flut-eyerun Crew-wassing". I love accents and the driver's was very distinctive, it's not the way people generally talk in that area. I still wonder where he was from. – Robert Dodier Jan 09 '21 at 00:49
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Personally, I think it's just a passed down thing from generation to generation. A butchering of the language so to speak. You can ask the same thing why "gross" isn't pronounced like "cross", or the why it's "Wendsday" and not "Wednesday", or why it's "i before e except after c" which is just weird.

anon
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