Orally Aural. Oh Really?

It depends who you're talking to. In my experience, British English has ORALLY and AURALLY pronounced exactly the same. Elsewhere, I have heard the AU of AURALLY pronounced OW.

It may not be correct, but I pronounce them differently. I would pronounce aurally almost like "ARE-aly," though not as strong. Visually, the "au" seems softer than the "o" in orally. Could be that I'm just strange . . .

They are most often pronounced the same. (See earlier Harvard studies of regional US pronunciations, apparently no longer on the web where I used to find them.)

I have generally heard them pronounced identically and it has troubled me, though not nearly as much as the sound-alikes "diarrhetic" and "diuretic," which, given a certain context, could result in a horrible misunderstanding.

This is one instance that Australian English differs from English from England - as a Nurse these terms are fairly commonplace in my vocabulary, and I hear my English colleagues pronounce them identically. In Australian pronunciation, it is 'oh-rally' (orally) and 'owr-ally' (aurally). this is quite important when telling someone how to take a medication.... :)

How funny...here in California, I don't know that I've heard anyone who pronounced the two identically. I certainly differentiate between the two, but I do recognize the similarity and often find myself attempting to make up for it by overemphasizing the "awr" (or the "ôr" for our pedantic topic starter) in aural.

I've never heard them pronounced differently (to give the Canadian perspective.) I only wish people would pronounce them differently than my name!

Imagine my surprise when I checked the dictionary and found that they are usually pronounced the same. The only difference I found listed was that some pronounce oral as oh-ral (1st syllable rhymes with "owe", something which I almost never hear, by the way).

Like some others above, I, too, emphasize the aw- more in aural. I actually use a vowel sound half-way between aw- and ah- for aural. Mind you, I'm not saying this is correct. I wonder whether this is a regional thing, maybe an older pronunciation, or just my own affectation (one shared by at least a few).

I live in Oregon of the United States and I have never heard these two words pronounced the same. Aural is always spoken with an and ah- sound, where oral is pronounced with an oh-. But then, I do not hear these words spoken very often, so I may be going on this from a very small group of people.

Another Aussie perspective, and from one who works in the Health industry as well, is that the 'o' in orally is pronounced as in 'got' and that the 'au' in aurally is pronounced 'or'. To mirror my fellow Australian, justines' comment, this could indeed be potentially embarrassing when prescribing medicine intake!

I'm with Cascader, offering the Kiwi perspective. I feel the words should be pronounced differently. In NZ they are.

cascader, did you say the opposite of what you meant? I've always heard and said aural as ah- and oral as or-

I'm with Jason on this one. I pronounce them differently; ARE-aly and an "o" in orally.

Cascader is using the Australian pronunciation - I agree with his/her description of how we pronounce the words. The American pronunciation is quite different.

orly? yarly. no wai!!1

sorry. I couldn't resist.

You can always send off for the free booklet on how to get round homophones in the English language. This delightful little vignette describes practical ways of pronouncing words that sound the same so you never get confused between boy and buoy, aural and oral, and free and three.

The booklet is absolutely free. Send an SAE to:
Mr Kenneth Cymbalta Haynes
Cytanog, 17 Parva Springs,
Tintern Parva, Monmouthshire NP16 6TT, UK

I don;'t know if this is a regional thing or not but I am from the UK (West Midlands) and have always pronounced orally 'ore-ally' and aur'ally as is in 'ow, that hurt!-ally'. My partner has just stopped me in my tracks and told me I'm wrong but I'm usually right, so stuff him.

Medphilips. The booklet may be free but contains one error already; "three' and "free" are not homophones as they both begin with different phonemes.I haven't got a phonemic alphabet font but the Greek one will suffice. 'th' is shown as /θ/ and 'f' as /φ/.
There can be no confusion whatsoever.

We British pronounce them the same. Americans say 'au' differently from us. To a Brit the American 'au' sounds like 'ah'.
The Australian 'owrally' is impossible...

Skeeter. What a ridiculous generalisation; given the many different regional accents that exist in both countries. As for 'owrally' being impossible?? I would imagine that the majority of people in English-speaking countries would have no problem at all in pronouncing it (whether you mean 'ow' as in 'ouch' or as in 'blow'). Either would present no difficulties at all that I can foresee.

Robert: yes, there are many regional accents but I was assuming standard pronunciation for both the UK and US.
As for 'owrally' I was imagining a rhyme with 'cow' (see palaceuk) but even a rhyme with 'blow' would be odd.
Perhaps Aussies could clarify.

Fair play Skeeter. I am unaware of Standard Pronunciation in American English ( not saying it doesn't exist). RP or Standard Pronunciation certainly does in English as I'm sure you're away. I'm not really certain as I'm really just re-hashing some stuff I did years ago in Linguistics. Seeing if I can still remember it. Not really a pedant,I just get bored at times and look around for answers to things that puzzle me. Hence the hunt for an answer to the Oral/Aural dilemma. I seem to remember that in Latin it would definitely be OWral as in "ouch" or 'Gaudete'.