Why do you guys say “pasta” and “tacos” with a short “a”?
Posted by Saltgrains@reddit | AskABrit | View on Reddit | 98 comments
Like pah-sta and tah-cos. I’m genuinely not trying to criticize, I’ve just always found it puzzling. With words like “scallop” and “grass” you say the long a—why isn’t the same applied to taco and pasta? 30F American here btw.
710733@reddit
They're closer to the original pronunciations - /ˈpasta/ and /ˈta.kɔs/ respectively
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
Tack-o is most certainly not closer to the OG pronunciation. I speak Spanish too.
710733@reddit
It absolutely is. Spanish is far more regular than English and uses a more fronted vowel (/a/). So British english ends up being closer (side note white a lot of English resources list/æ/ rather than /a/, this assumes RP as the British pronunciation, which in general won't be the case)
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
Sure maybe closer in general. But “tack-o” is most certainly not closer to the original Spanish pronunciation. I’ll die on that hill.
710733@reddit
You're welcome to die on that hill, then. It's a fronted vowel in Spanish and it's fronted in British English.
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
I mean…I guess listen to any Spanish person saying “taco” and it doesn’t sound like tack-o. It’s tah-co. I really don’t know what else to say.
710733@reddit
Mirar
You can see the IPA transcription at the top of the page. Spanish clearly uses an open fronted vowel sound, as does UK English. US English uses a backed open vowel sound.
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
No. It’s not fucking tack-o in Spanish. I speak Spanish. That link didn’t even have the Spanish pronunciation.
Constellation-88@reddit
Yeah, you are 100% right. I do not understand these people who think taco is ever pronounced like tack or back or lack. I am also a Spanish speaker surrounded by Spanish speakers, and I have never heard tacko in my life.
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
THANK YOU. Good god I thought I was going crazy.
Confetticandi@reddit
Really? The Italian /‘pasta/ used to sound more like the British /ˈpæstə/ than the North American /ˈpɑːstə/ ?
Same for the North American /ˈtɑːkoʊ/ vs the British /ˈtækoʊ/ ?
Viva_Veracity1906@reddit
It’s pah-sta in Italian and tah-ko in Spanish. Why muck it up?
My ex-husband said ‘tack-o’ for taco. Definitely diminished my wifely affections.
BedaFomm@reddit
In Spanish it’s tack-o, so your husband is correct. Par-sta or tar-co would be wrong, probably a strangulated US accent.
Constellation-88@reddit
As a Spanish speaker, what are you talking about? T ah co. Not t ack o. There is no R in either one, but the a does not sound like the an intact or back or lack or snack. It sounds like the a in father.
Constellation-88@reddit
As an American, I would never say pasta and tacos with the a like scallop or grass either. Do you?
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
That’s not at all what i’m asking. I’m asking why I sometimes hear British people say words like taco or pasta with a short “a” instead of a long “a” (like how I’ve heard some British people pronounce grass or scallops).
Constellation-88@reddit
The way you spelled pasta is p ah sta. pasta like Ahh or aww.
Sc al lop or gr ass with the a like apple.
As an American, I would never say pasta like apple or taco. I don’t know anyone who does. Brits and Americans, afaik, say it p aw Sta.
shard_@reddit
This site has the two British pronunciations of scallop and neither of them has a long "a".
Redditvagabond0127@reddit
Why do Americans pronounce things the way they do? Because that's how their language has evolved. It's the same with us Brits. Why some Americans seem to think their variant of a language invented in another country is the default baffles me.
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
I never once said I think we’re the default language. We pronounce taco more like it sounds in Spanish. Some people in England don’t seem to. That’s all. It’s not that fucking deep.
Redditvagabond0127@reddit
Notice that I said some Americans rather than you specifically. It's a common sentiment I see espoused by Americans online that relates to the discussion, so I made an observation about it.
Confetticandi@reddit
Did OP actually indicate this or are you just being defensive?
Redditvagabond0127@reddit
Neither. I was making an observation about sentiments I frequently see Americans espouse online.
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
Never once did I fucking indicate that. They’re being a defensive cunt is all.
Miss_IAmAlwaysRight@reddit
Americans claim they speak closer to the old English of the past, so their English is more accurate. Yeah, I don't get it either. 🤷🏽♀️
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
No we don’t claim that.
Miss_IAmAlwaysRight@reddit
American people have said that to me online.
yes_its_my_alt@reddit
That's kinda funny considering they had to change the dictionary to give illiterate rednecks a chance. 😅
PoopsieDoodler@reddit
Yo UNbaffle, please read 710733’s response.
SpaceWolves26@reddit
Why don't you pronounce cat, bat, hat, flash, tank, etc with a long a?
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
Not trying to fight you. Just curious as to why taco, despite having a long a in Spanish and American English, doesn’t seem to in SOME NOT ALL British accents. It’s just interesting that’s all. I know accents make words sound differently, but what I don’t get, is an accent making a traditionally Spanish word sound so different to the original despite the American accent not doing the same.
shard_@reddit
I don't really understand what you mean here. I'm not exactly fluent but I have learnt some Spanish as an adult (as in as part of an actual class) and one of the first things I was taught was that Spanish only has five vowel sounds, of which the 'a' is a very short sound, so there is literally no such thing as a "long 'a' in Spanish". I've also been to Mexico a few times and I have literally never heard a long 'a' over there, either in the word "taco" or otherwise.
Can you link to a website with an online pronunciation of what you mean, from a native Spanish speaker? Like, if you just Google for "taco pronunciation in spanish" then it does give a couple for different dialects of Spanish, but both of them have a short 'a' (especially the Americas dialect). I'm not suggesting that the British pronunciation is accurate but I'm kind of baffled at how a long 'a' could be considered more accurate.
sir_thrillho@reddit
Why don't you? You're not the default.
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
Never fucking said I was. Americans say taco more closely to the actual pronunciation and SOME NOT ALL British accents don’t. That’s all and that’s it.
Healthy-Tap7717@reddit
So our phonics alphabet the letter 'A' would be pronounced like if you said 'ants'. Take that sound of the 'A' and then say 'pasta'. Basically, our dialect and language teachings is speak how you read it. P-A-ST-A
I mean it is a very strange thing to pick up on. Like you just wanted to fight with a few brits 2day.
You may as well take the teeth out of Americans in the deep south with their mumbling and tongues hitting the roofs of thei4 mouths as they speak. Can't pronounce any proper English.
Then you got Calafornia/LA States 'like yeah, I know right, like totally'. Plus take the way Taco and Pasta should be said and people in these states speak every word like it. Wahhhd yahhhh lahhhkkke saahhhmmmeee pahhhncahhkes?
sir_thrillho@reddit
Yeah and a lot of you guys say caramel like "car-mull" and squirrel like "skwirl" so you also have words you pronounce differently. Obviously the answer is to do with accents.
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
It’s not obvious bc it’s a Spanish word that SOME NOT ALL people with British accents tend to totally pronounce differently than both Latinos and Americans. Why do you butcher a traditionally Spanish word? That’s kinda what I’ve been trying to get at but am afraid to outright ask in fear of getting piled on, but I’m realizing it doesn’t matter bc it’s Reddit and I’ll get piled on anyways!
sir_thrillho@reddit
Okay and America has place names taken from the UK that you pronounce differently, so why do you butcher that? Once again: accents.
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
Well, we didn’t have a choice there, you colonized us!
sir_thrillho@reddit
White Americans are the ones who colonised the americas, not the descendants of British people who stayed here. Use your common sense.
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
White Americans are the ones who colonized the America’s? Are you brain dead? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United_States
sir_thrillho@reddit
Not you changing your comment above AFTER I've replied. I've given you the answer you were looking for, which is ACCENTS, but you just want to yell at people for pronouncing things "wrong" as if your way is the only one. Grow up.
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
Wait is it a crime to change your comment? All I did was copy and paste the first paragraph to make it a little easier for you. I know common sense is really difficult for you. Lmao I still can’t get over “white Americans colonized America” hahahahahhahahaa I’m legit still crying laughing from that one 😂. So thanks babe :)
sir_thrillho@reddit
Oh fuck off. You swanned in pretending to ask a question when you just wanted to act superior and you didn't like my answer. Also don't call me "babe" you fucking misogynist.
langly3@reddit
Yesterday I was told I’m pronouncing ramen rong… er wrong. And I still don’t know how to pronounce taco. I say pasta with a short a, two of them!
Why_Teach@reddit
You pronounce it the way everyone in your circle of acquaintance pronounces it, unless the storekeeper doesn’t understand you. 😉
Seriously, pronunciation is more about affiliating yourself with a particular dialect group than it is about “correctness.”
True story: A young woman I taught at university who came from an “upper-class” Southern family here in the US, was instructed by her mother that, “‘Yes’ is a two-syllable word.” The proper, ladylike pronunciation of “yes” in that dialect group was something like “Yeh-ays.”
langly3@reddit
That’s a good way of looking at it, thank you. Now I think about it, I’m not sure how many times I’ve said ‘ramen’ or ‘ramen’ out loud until my conversation the other day
Miss_IAmAlwaysRight@reddit
I say it like ray-mun
ReySpacefighter@reddit
It's ラーメン: ラー "ra(a)" メ "me" ン "n". Very much not "ray-mun".
Miss_IAmAlwaysRight@reddit
Sometimes I say "ray-men"
langly3@reddit
Me too! But I was told it’s Rah-men. Maybe they eat it on Stargate SG1
infieldcookie@reddit
Why do you guys say “Creg” and “gram” instead of Craig and Graham?
stercus_uk@reddit
I pronounce pasta with a short “a” because it’s an italian dish and the Italian pronunciation is with a short “a”. Same for tacos. It’s a Mexican dish, so I pronounce it the way Mexicans do. Anything else is just being ignorant.
kouyehwos@reddit
British “short a” can be pretty close to [a] and not too far from Spanish “a”. American “short a” tends to be much closer to some weird [e]-like diphthong, so applying it to Spanish words might be weird.
British “long a” has a somewhat limited distribution. It may appear before written “r”, “l” (car, palm) and maybe before some fricatives, especially in some dialects (bath, grass, graph). But otherwise pronouncing it before a nasal, or a stop as in “taco” would be extremely irregular.
This is not really an issue in American English, since in that case “long a” is merged with other vowels (“short o” or even “aw”).
iamthefirebird@reddit
English is many things. Consistent is not one of them. The scone debate has raged for decades.
HandsomePotRoast@reddit
The British have always taken great pride in mispronouncing other people's languages, especially among cultures deemed less powerful, or more "exotic." There was a guy on the BBC who insisted on calling the former US president BARR-ick Obama. It's likely a relic of the Empire, a way of showing contempt for the w*gs, as Brits can't be arsed to learn lesser languages. TLDR: Racism, basically.
AfraidOstrich9539@reddit
Is it Iraq or eye-rack
Typical_Ad_210@reddit
Definitely. It’s why when I meet someone with one of these filthy foreign sounding monikers, I make a point of carefully asking them how to say it. Then i deliberately say it wrong anyway, to indicate my contempt. Turns out I’m just a big racist bastard, much like the rest of the UK 🙄
Miss_IAmAlwaysRight@reddit
I just call them Dave. I'm sure they don't mind. 💀
Why_Teach@reddit
Regional accents have no logic.
jeanclaudebrowncloud@reddit
Why do you say it long
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
Because that’s how it is in Spanish. That’s the original word.
MerlinOfRed@reddit
Tell me, how do you say "father"?
Some words just sound like that. Accents vary.
Even across the UK it's not uniform, but on the whole we have more ways of pronouncing the letter "a" then you lot.
For example, I'd say "a" differently in rat, bass, father, want, and water,
AfraidOstrich9539@reddit
What sort of bass though? 🐟? 🎸?
AnneKnightley@reddit
Why not? Personally I use a short a for scallop and don’t know many people who don’t. Grass can use a long a but only usually in the south of england - in the north we use short a for that too.
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
Haha I’ve been watching a lot of Hell’s Kitchen and am just going off Gordon’s pronunciations. I realize I’m asking a super odd question and it’s probably just depends on the person/region? I’m just a curious gal.
poop_69420_@reddit
Gordon’s pronunciations are how someone down south would say them. In the midlands and up north we say a word like grass with a short a. Probably similar to how Americans say it. But down south they say their As elongated
Flea-Surgeon@reddit
Gordon is well spoken and doesn't sound Scottish whatsoever. Have a quick look at the UK version of 'Shameless' if you want to hear a 'working class' northern (Manchester) accent.
LionLucy@reddit
"scallop" is pronounced "scollop"
warm_golden_muff@reddit
Are you fucking joking? Refer to the original languages.
AfraidOstrich9539@reddit
There's probably 5 'uk'accents for every year that the USA has existed as a nation state.
I say pasta, tacos and grass with the same vowel sound.
Downtown_Physics8853@reddit
Here in the US, we call that the mid-western flat "A", and I happen to live at a place on the border of that region; people to the east lengthen their a's, and to the west they make them short and nasal. By the time you get to Texas, it becomes extremely nasal....
BTW, the mid-western flat "a" is not the same as the New England "a"; that one is nasal, but kinda long.
dinkidoo7693@reddit
Up north we don’t. Thats regional
rememberimapersontoo@reddit
to pronounce it “pahsta” or “tahco” like an american sounds like a british person saying parsta or tarco. so that’s probably why
it’s a big argument here over the word bath - mostly posh people who pronounce it barth (bahth)
ReySpacefighter@reddit
"Posh" yeah all those posh people, definitely not half the country or anything.
sir_thrillho@reddit
You say it's a posh thing but we say it like barth in the south west and that's largely not posh people despite the weird assumption we're all wealthy landowners with three homes.
Royston-Vasey123@reddit
Firstly, pronunciations of the words you've mentioned will vary by region. For example, I say 'grass' to rhyme with 'ass,' and am from the west of England.
Secondly, I have often wondered about similar questions of Americans - for example, why is it that Americans often turn a T sound in the middle of a word into a D sound, like in 'matter', which most Americans I've heard will pronounce like 'madder'? The answer is just that our dialects have developed this way, so we can't really give you a specific answer on this.
el_disko@reddit
In the UK there are many regional variations of English so there are places here which do use similar pronunciations to those found in the States.
I’ve personally never heard anyone say ‘scallop’ with anything other than a short ‘a’ sound but that’s not to say it doesn’t exist.
Mental_Body_5496@reddit
I dont 🤔
Own-Priority-53864@reddit
As usual with this sub, the question is built entirely on a false premise. I don't mind answering dumb or naive questions, but answering questions that are wrong from the foundations is so frustrating.
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
lol I never claimed “us lot” had more or better ways of pronouncing shit. But the Spanish pronunciation of “taco” is much more similar to the American one, so I still don’t get how “tah-co” was born. But that’s okay! There’s lots of shit in life we may not get answers to!
Sharp-Sky64@reddit
You seem to think there’s just one British accent. There’s hundreds of English ones, tens of Scottish ones and fuck knows how many Welsh ones.
Basically every accent pronounces “grass” with the same “a” as we do in “taco”. Nobody is saying “grarse”
Sonarthebat@reddit
Pasta and tacos are loan words. That's how they're pronounced in their country of origin.
We don't stress "A"s for everything. It's a regional thing from the South, where the upperclasses are.
Sharp-Sky64@reddit
No, we say “grass” the same as “taco”. Some Southern affects say it the way you’re thinking
ReySpacefighter@reddit
It's called the "cot-caught" merge, and we don't have it.
LionLucy@reddit
Prior warning, this is going to be a bit of a rant. This is a pet peeve of mine!
Americans and British people say "pasta" and "tacos" differently, but here's the crucial point - we're both equally wrong. Americans use a long, rounded "aaah" sound, like in "father" British people use the flat, short "a" like in "bag" or "van." The Spanish and Italian "a" in "taco" and "pasta " is a short, round sound, that doesn't really exist in English. The closest thing we have is actually the "u" in words like "bus." But even that's not quite right, obviously if you said "tucko" you'd sound like a lunatic.
Long story short, we're both wrong, but it's okay. It's perfectly fine to pronounce imported foreign words using sounds that actually exist in your language.
sherahero@reddit
Grass doesn't have a long A, it rhymes with brass, with a long A would sound more like graze.
alexq35@reddit
Why do you say Parmajan?
Different accents pronounce things differently.
The UK didn’t have as many Italian or Mexican immigrants so didn’t pick up their pronunciation of the words
Saltgrains@reddit (OP)
The third paragraph really makes it make sense for me! Thank you. Again, like I said, I’m not trying to criticize.
shard_@reddit
"Grass" is a regional thing. Most of the country probably say it with a short 'a'. Those who speak something closer to RP say it with a long 'a'. I've never heard anyone say "scallop" with a long 'a'...
In answer to your question though, I'd guess it's because neither of those are originally English words, and they haven't been in the language long enough for us to evolve our own pronunciations.
SnooDonuts6494@reddit
Who are "you guys"?
Different people pronounce things in different ways.
I don't say grass with a long a. I say it like "ass". /ɡras/
RP say grahss, but that sounds weird to me. /ɡrɑːs/
The point is... there are thousands upon thousands of accents and dialects.
Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Grass, n.¹, Pronunciation. In Oxford English dictionary. Retrieved May 17, 2025, from https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/4469983481
colin_staples@reddit
Pronunciation of “grass” is regional.
Some say “grass” with a short-a to rhyme with ass, some say with a long-a to rhyme with arse.
Champion-Trainer341@reddit
Grarse
elliot_may@reddit
Pretty much all my 'a's are short. Longer 'a's are more of a southern thing. (Not always, but often.)
Salt-Respect7200@reddit
Because we’re busy people, we don’t have time to elongate.
BessieBighead@reddit
I say scallop and grass with a short a too. It's not a conscious choice, it's just an accent!
NovembersSpawn@reddit
"Pah-sta" and "tah-cos" sound more American to me than British, to be honest with you.
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