Editing Received Pronunciation (section)

==Comparison with other varieties of English==
* Like most other varieties of English outside Northern England, RP has undergone the [[foot–strut split|''foot''–''strut'' split]]: pairs like ''put''/''putt'' are pronounced differently.{{sfnp|Wells|1982|pp=196''ff''}}
* RP is a [[Rhoticity in English|non-rhotic accent]], so {{IPA|/r/}} does not occur unless followed immediately by a vowel. Pairs such as ''father''/''farther'', ''caught''/''court'' and ''formally''/''formerly'' are homophones.{{sfnp|Wells|1982|p=76}}
* Unlike a number of [[North American English]] accents, RP has not undergone the [[Mary–marry–merry merger|''Mary''–''marry''–''merry'']], [[Mirror–nearer merger|''nearer''–''mirror'']], or [[English-language vowel changes before historic r#Hurry–furry merger|''hurry''–''furry'']] mergers: all these words are distinct from each other.{{sfnp|Wells|1982|p=245}}
* Unlike many North American accents, RP has not undergone the [[Father–bother merger|''father''–''bother'']] or [[Cot–caught merger|''cot''–''caught'' mergers]].
* RP does not have [[English consonant-cluster reductions#Yod-dropping|yod-dropping]] after {{IPA|/n/}}, {{IPA|/t/}}, {{IPA|/d/}}, {{IPA|/z/}} and {{IPA|/θ/}}, but some speakers of RP have ''yod''-dropping after {{IPA|/s/}} and {{IPA|/l/}}. Hence, for example, ''new'', ''tune'', ''dune'', ''resume'' and ''enthusiasm'' are pronounced {{IPA|/njuː/}}, {{IPA|/tjuːn/}}, {{IPA|/djuːn/}}, {{IPA|/rɪˈzjuːm/}} and {{IPA|/ɪnˈθjuːziæzm/}} rather than {{IPA|/nuː/}}, {{IPA|/tuːn/}}, {{IPA|/duːn/}}, {{IPA|/rɪˈzuːm/}} and {{IPA|/ɪnˈθuːziæzm/}}. This contrasts with many [[East Anglian English|East Anglian]] and [[East Midlands English|East Midland]] varieties of [[English language in England]] and with many forms of [[American English]], including [[General American]]. In words such as ''pursuit'' and ''allure'', both pronunciations (with and without {{IPA|/j/}}) may be heard in RP, but major dictionaries only list the pronunciation with {{IPA|/j/}} for ''pursuit''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Oxford Learner's Dictionaries |url=https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/ |website=Oxford Learner's Dictionaries |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=23 April 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Cambridge Dictionary |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ |website=Cambridge Dictionary |publisher=Cambridge University Press |access-date=23 April 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English |url=https://www.ldoceonline.com/ |website=Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English |publisher=Pearson Education |access-date=23 April 2025}}</ref> There are, however, several words where a yod has been lost with the passage of time: for example, the word ''suit'' originally had a yod in RP but this is now extremely rare.
* The [[flapping|flapped]] variant of {{IPA|/t/}} and {{IPA|/d/}} (as in much of the West Country, Ulster, most North American varieties including General American, Australian English, and the [[Cape Coloured]] dialect of South Africa) is not used very often. 
* RP has undergone the [[wine–whine merger|''wine''–''whine'' merger]] (so the sequence {{IPA|/hw/}} is not present except among those who have acquired this distinction as the result of speech training).{{sfnp|Wells|1982|pp=228''ff''}} The [[Royal Academy of Dramatic Art]], based in London, still teaches these two sounds for international breadth as distinct phonemes. They are also distinct from one another in most of Scotland and Ireland, in the northeast of England, and in the southeastern United States.{{sfnp|Wells|1982|pp=228''ff''}}
* Unlike some other varieties of [[English language in England]], there is no [[h-dropping|''h''-dropping]] in words like ''head'' or ''horse''.{{sfnp|Wells|1982|pp=253''ff''}} In hurried phrases such as "as hard as he could" h-dropping commonly applies to the word ''he''.
* Unlike most [[Southern Hemisphere English]] and North American English accents, RP has not undergone the [[weak vowel merger]], meaning that pairs such as ''Lenin''/''Lennon'' are distinct.{{sfnp|Wells|1982|pp=167''ff''}}
*In traditional RP {{IPA|[ɾ]}} is an [[allophone]] of {{IPA|/r/}} (it is used intervocalically after a stressed syllable, after {{IPA|/θ}}, {{IPA|ð/}} and sometimes even after {{IPA|/b}}, {{IPA|ɡ/}}).{{sfnp|Wise|1957|p=242}}{{sfnp|Cruttenden|2008|p=221}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Collins |first1=Beverley |last2=Mees |first2=Inger |title=Practical English Phonetics and Phonology |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-138-59150-9 |page=52 |edition=4th |quote="A tap was also to be heard '''intervocalically'''{{nbsp}}... from old-fashioned traditional RP speakers{{nbsp}}... It was used for /r/ after a stressed vowel, e.g. ''carry, very, Paris''."}}</ref>