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Is "of" always supposed to be pronounced with the v sound (like "ov")? Or does it depend on the region (e.g. US, UK) or maybe on the word that follows the preposition?

For example, how would you pronounce the title of this question?

tchrist
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b.roth
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    “Is "of" always supposed to be pronounced with the v sound?” Of course. – Tsuyoshi Ito Oct 28 '10 at 12:22
  • @Tsuyoshi, why "of course"? – b.roth Oct 28 '10 at 13:26
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    The word “of” in the phrase “of course” is usually pronounced with the /f/ sound. That is, my previous comment was meant to be a joke. :( – Tsuyoshi Ito Oct 28 '10 at 13:35
  • That's an interesting answer to the question then. The fact that there are exceptions should be highlighted in our answers here. – b.roth Oct 28 '10 at 13:37
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    @Tsuyoshi - I have never ever heard 'of course' pronounced with /f/. Are you talking about 'off course'? – Colin Fine Oct 28 '10 at 14:18
  • @Colin: I do not think that I am confusing “of course” with “off course,” but my understanding about the pronunciation of “of course” turned out to be incorrect. See my answer. – Tsuyoshi Ito Oct 28 '10 at 14:30
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    Sometimes the v sound is omitted completely ... lotsa luck – GEdgar Mar 06 '13 at 15:08
  • I think it's because of the 'v' sound that the trend towards could of/should of/would of (instead of have) has arrisen – Ruth Mar 06 '13 at 14:54

4 Answers4

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In English (well, OK, UK, US, Australian and NZ English, at least, but I suspect all English), "of" is pronounced with the 'v' sound, as "ov". This helps to distinguish it from "off", a separate word (meaning "not on"), pronounced with the 'f' sound.

b.roth
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gkrogers
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    Hence the crime against humanity that is "should of". – RegDwigнt Oct 28 '10 at 08:54
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    @RegDwight, do you mean the misspelling that is derived from how people pronounce "should have"? – b.roth Oct 28 '10 at 09:18
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    @Bruno - I think it is actually should've, which is totally valid. Some people just spell it wrong when writing it down. – DanSingerman Oct 28 '10 at 10:31
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    @gkrogers: I agree that the [v] sound is used in all these dialects of English, but I don't agree that the reason is to distinguish it from off. Of and off have different vowel sounds in addition to their consonants being different, so the [v] or [f] wouldn't make a difference. But even if this weren't the case, homophony is common even among high-frequency words. Take two/too/to or they're/their/there, for example. I think it is just pronounced that way "because it is", and it is spelled that way because it used to be pronounced with an [f] sound at one time. – Kosmonaut Oct 28 '10 at 13:10
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    @Kosmonaut: yes, you're right - that's not the reason, per se. I should've just said "This helpfully distinguishes it from..." – gkrogers Oct 28 '10 at 16:26
  • @gkrogers: OK, but I was saying that the consonant doesn't distinguish the two words either. They would be different with the same final consonant. – Kosmonaut Oct 28 '10 at 22:15
  • @Kosmonaut: I don't agree that they would be different even with the same consonant. The vowel sounds are identical. – gkrogers Oct 29 '10 at 05:24
  • @gkrogers: The vowels are just plain not the same. The difference between the vowels in of and off is the same difference that we use to distinguish but and bot, for example. You can look at the dictionary pronunciation if you don't believe me: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/of and http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/off – Kosmonaut Oct 29 '10 at 13:15
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    Ah, I see! You're referring to US pronunciation; I'm referring to British English, or "RP". The OED has the pronunciation of 'of' as "ɒv" and of 'off' as "ɒf". – gkrogers Oct 29 '10 at 22:02
  • This is a good point. It is pronounced with the V sound. If it had an F sound, it would be the word "off" which is a different word with a different meaning. – Tristan Mar 06 '13 at 16:23
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The word of is often pronounced weakly, and the /v/ sound at the end of of is sometimes pronounced as [f]. The phrase “of course” is a typical example. I think that the /v/ in the word of is often pronounced as [f] before an unvoiced consonant.

Honestly speaking, this came as a surprise to me. As a foreign speaker, I learned the following “rule” at school: the word of in the phrase of course is pronounced with the “f” sound. (A similar “rule” is that the word have in have to is pronounced with the “f” sound.) Learning it as a rule had given me a (wrong) impression that English speakers are aware of it. However, while looking for a material to back up this “rule,” I learned that this is merely a variation of the actual sound of the same phoneme /v/.

Tsuyoshi Ito
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    Ah, I see. I remember coming across a suggestion that voiced consonants in English are generally only half voiced, and the major difference is fortis/lenis rather than voice. – Colin Fine Oct 28 '10 at 14:42
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    Actually I think you are right about the /f/ sound in /of course/. If I say it slowly I put the /v/ in there, but in the course of a sentence I do say a soft /f/; /fc/ must be easier on the lips than /vc/. – Jared Updike Nov 01 '10 at 22:37
  • I tried saying it at a more normal speed and still ended up with "A horse is a horse, ov course, ov course." And now I have a different problem: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/810 – J.T. Grimes Nov 02 '10 at 01:03
  • Tsuyoshi Ito, that is a surprise. Maybe because it's not a “rule” but a variation in how different people pronounce that particular, letter f. It's always amusing to learn of things in the language that non-native speakers have assumed or have been led to believe are strict rules, followed religiously, when in reality, they are not. – Tristan r Aug 17 '14 at 18:16
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    The normal will be a /v/ for both of and have, but /v/ in front of certain voiceless consonants will devoice to /f/ in moderately fast speech (at least in many dialects). – user0721090601 Aug 17 '14 at 21:11
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It depends. Formally it's always "ov." But it can be shortened to "a", like if you say someone is a "piece a shit", or "cream a the crop."

Some following words lend themselves better to shortening. For example, saying "I've heard a him" is less common (for me anyway) than "I've heard ov him."

Claudiu
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    In my dialect, we'd be most likely to shorten this to "I've heard've 'im" [ɑɪv hɝd ə vəm]. So, the [h] in him is dropped (which is regularly done with him and her), leaving no need to drop the [v] from of. – Kosmonaut Oct 28 '10 at 14:34
  • @ Claudiu Or "cream o' the crop" or "ring a ring o' roses". @Kosmonaut But hopefully never written "heard've". Just "I've heard of 'im". – Lisa Sep 20 '11 at 02:40
  • The apostrophe in o'clock is of similar origin. – TRiG Jun 26 '12 at 22:48
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According to the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, the strong form is pronounced as [ɒv] (British) / [ʌv] (US), whereas the weak form is pronounced as [əv]. The informal short form, sometimes written as o', is pronounced as [ə]. There is no mentioning of any exceptions, suggesting that the of in "of course" (cf. other answers and comments) is pronounced in the same way (not with f). Audio files can be found here. The dictionary points out that "of" is a rare exception of a word where f is pronounced like v.

painfulenglish
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    Wow ... I never realized the strong form was pronounced differently in England. Of course, you almost never hear the strong form. – Peter Shor Aug 17 '14 at 16:28
  • Yeah, me neither. I’d love to find some audio clips of actual speech wherein this is demonstrated. – tchrist Aug 17 '14 at 16:38
  • @tchrist: I would use the stressed form about half the time in “What’re you thinking of?” [… θɪŋkɪŋ ʌv] (depending on prosody) and all the time in “Pronunciation of ‘of’” [… əv ʌv]. – Jon Purdy Aug 17 '14 at 21:15