Is there any case when it's correct to pronounce the word police with the stress on the first syllable:
/ˈpəlis/?
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1Of possible interest: Where in the U.S. do people change the stress of umbrella, adult and TV to the first syllable? – choster Apr 23 '19 at 06:47
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1I spent my teens in Glasgow, Scotland and the slang for police was 'polis' with the emphasis on the first syllable. I have no idea where this comes from unless it is from the French. – Nigel J Apr 23 '19 at 10:34
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@NigelJ I also think of it as typically Glaswegian/Scottish (just from watching TV!) – Apr 23 '19 at 10:38
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@JamesRandom It used to be safer to watch Glasgow on telly than to live there. I think things may have changed since the 60s. – Nigel J Apr 23 '19 at 10:40
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1When you're talking to your friends in the 'hood. – Hot Licks Apr 23 '19 at 12:05
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1@HotLicks friends would be homies. Talking is conversating – Kris Apr 23 '19 at 12:21
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Yes, in Germany because then you're making fun of them :) – Fattie Apr 23 '19 at 14:21
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1The way this question is phrased is bizarre. Correct according to who? There is no single authority that defines what's "correct" in English. "Correct" is based on usage. – user91988 Apr 23 '19 at 15:08
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1@only_pro - It's only correct if it's "to whom". – Hot Licks Apr 24 '19 at 01:46
1 Answers
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It is possible to put the main stress on the first syllable of police in some varieties of English. When the first syllable of police is stressed, the vowel is not a schwa. It is the "goat" vowel or "long o" sound: /ˈpolis/ or /ˈpoʊlis/ (both of these phonemic transcriptions are identical).
There is no way to classify this pronunciation as indisputably "correct" or "incorrect" in a global sense, because there is no consensus about how to define "correct pronunciation". That said, Mark Liberman (in the post linked below) suggests that "the initially-stressed [pronunciation of police] seems to have become stigmatized, and have been abandoned by many better-educated or more upwardly-mobile people." There are many specific speakers who would never stress the first syllable of police in any context. So it's acceptable for a non-native speaker to always say /pəˈlis/, with stress only on the second syllable.
The pronunciation /ˈpolis/, with stress on the first syllable, is supposed to occur for some speakers in the Southern US, according to the following sources:
Straight Dope Message Board discussion: Poh-lice, or police?
"The Southern Stress on the First Syllable in Words like Cement and Police", by Grant Barrett, A Way with Words
"Thanksgiving Variation", Mark Liberman, Language Log
herisson
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Does this mean the [iː] gets shortened in the process does its quality change? I am quite confused what is called by "stress" here. – Vladimir F Героям слава Apr 23 '19 at 14:16
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@VladimirF: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_(linguistics). In many cases unstressed vowels are somewhat shorter or have somewhat different quality, but the term "stress" does not refer to either of those facts, and in the specific case of police I don't think the length and quality of the /i/ are noticeably different between the two pronunciations. (Disclaimer: I come from a region where only the second-syllable-stressed pronunciation is found.) – ruakh Apr 23 '19 at 16:06
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I can imagine an SSBE speaker giving a version of police with a stress on each syllable for emphatic effect: "Dont mess with him. He's a member of the POH LEESE, don't you know" – Araucaria - Him Apr 23 '19 at 19:38
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I think the stigmatization Liberman is talking about is that this is associated with rednecks, hillbillies, and other categories that are stereotypically uneducated. – Barmar Apr 23 '19 at 19:46
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2@VladimirF: Phonetic vowel length in English depends on a variety of factors, so I'm not using length markers in my transcriptions here. The quality of /i/ in my accent is (broadly) [i], whether stressed or unstressed. See "The Undesirability of length marks in EFL phonemic transcription", (1975), by Jack Windsor Lewis. – herisson Apr 23 '19 at 19:49