Out of your mind

[svetlana14]

Could you please listen to this short episode and confirm me whether the guy is actually saying "Are you out of your mind" At least it looks like from the subtitles. May be the way of pronuciation is pretty relaxed or reduced enough as it is difficult to catch the whole phrase. Thank you very much indeed.

 

[teechar]

Could you please listen to this short [STRIKE]episode[/STRIKE] clip/recording and confirm [STRIKE]me[/STRIKE] whether the guy is actually saying "Are you out of your mind"? At least it looks like that from the subtitles. May be [STRIKE]the[/STRIKE] his way of pronunciation is pretty [STRIKE]relaxed[/STRIKE] casual or fast [STRIKE]reduced enough[/STRIKE] as it is difficult to catch the whole phrase. Thank you very much indeed.

Yes, that's what he's saying. That would make sense. The alternative is "You're out of your mind!", but that seems less likely to me (especially given the rising tone, indicating a rhetorical question). However, let's see if some native AmE speakers have a different view.

 

[GoesStation]

He clearly says 'R you out of your mind? The first word is significantly reduced.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Yes, he is, indeed, saying, "Are you out of your mind?"

He says it quickly, so it sounds like "Er you owd yer mind?" It's standard conversational American English.

 

[svetlana14]

Yes, he is, indeed, saying, "Are you out of your mind?"

He says it quickly, so it sounds like "Er you owd yer mind?" It's standard conversational American English.

So, it looks like he is dropping "of" at all between 'owd and'"yer". Am I right? Thank you.

 

[GoesStation]

So, it looks like he is dropping "of" [STRIKE]at all[/STRIKE] altogether between 'owd and'"yer". Am I right?

My American ears hear it. The next word begins with a consonant, so he drops the /f/. This is normal American pronunciation. You'll often see "out of" written as outta in dialogs to reflect this.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

So, it looks like he is dropping "of" at all between 'owd and'"yer". Am I right? Thank you.

Yes, but not on purpose. That's how we sound when we talk fast.

 

[jutfrank]

It depends what we mean by 'drop' but I think it's very unlikely that any speaker would drop a preposition such as of for a few reasons, the most relevant being that that would alter the rhythm of the utterance. The of is in some deep sense 'there', though it may be so weak as to be barely perceptible, and only as an unstressed beat.

By contrast, auxiliaries (especially sentence-heading ones) such as Are in this case, are likely to be dropped by speakers. It isn't the case here, however.

 

[probus]

My American ears hear it

My Canadian ears, too. There's a tiny schwa between "owd" and "yer" that I think Charlie omitted when he provided his phonetic rendering. That schwa stands for of.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

My Canadian ears, too. There's a tiny schwa between "owd" and "yer" that I think Charlie omitted when he provided his phonetic rendering. That schwa stands for of.

I think he missed that schwa syllable altogether. But the important points are:

- Yes, he's saying "Are you out of your mind?"

- No, he's not enunciating clearly — something English speakers anywhere in the world can be guilty of.

 

[Tdol]

My British ears hear it, though it's a bit of a struggle to get there as it's so compressed.