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[Surname] Re: Muir
Muir is pronounced myoor. You'll find the first bearer of that name in the US at http://awt.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=elefuntz&id=I0700.
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dittoMyoor, not myur as Katica believes ;) It's quite simply the Scots word for Moor, and is found in place-names all over the place (I live in a suburb called Muirend).I believe it's not intuitive for an American to pronounce as you say e.g. dooty instead of dyuty.

This message was edited 7/27/2009, 1:03 PM

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In North American English, the glide is only deleted after alveolar consonants like /t d n l s/ so that words like mew, pew, cue are always pronounced myoo, pyoo, kyoo.
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ah, ok, thankswasn't sure if it was the same
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