Does Scone Rhyme with Con or Cone?, + Sour Cream Scones - KitchenLane (2024)

I didn’t eat scones as often as I wanted during a recent glorious trip to northern Scotland and the stunningly beautiful Orkney Islands. While I dearly love scones– including my own sour cream scones here—I just dreaded saying their name. Whenever I did order them in shops, I agonized over how to pronounce the word the whole time I was in line.

If I said scone so it rhymed with con (the way most Scots do), it sounded pretentious—as though I’d been watching too much Downton Abbey and was putting on airs. As in, “My word!” I should wave a lace hankie and request a spot of tea, too!

If I said scone so it rhymed with cone, the way I normally do, I could almost feel my Scottish hosts cringing at my grating American accent. I could even imagine them serving my order on Styrofoam instead of china to rebuke me for being a doltish Yank.

According to one research study, the Scots, who originated the little individual breads called scones in perhaps the 1400s, overwhelmingly use the (to my ears) effete sounding rhymes-with-con pronunciation. It’s the choice of many other British, Australian, New Zealand, and even our neighboring Canadian speakers of English as well. British dictionaries tend cite this pronunciation as the preferred one, but do acknowledge that some, “particularly the inhabitants of the United States,” use an “alternate” or “secondary” pronunciation.

Nevertheless, the results of an entertaining Oxford Dictionaries poll titled “How Do You Pronounce Scone?” published in March, 2013, reveal that currently more of the world’s English speakers are in the cone camp than in the con camp. Author Simon Thomas comments on the clear “transatlantic divide,” revealed in two pie charts presented, noting that the overwhelming majority of Americans pronounce scone with a long O sound while over half in the United Kingdom go the other way.

Thomas concludes that it’s perfectly fine to use either pronunciation, which should make me feel better, but doesn’t. For one thing, I believe that the folks who came up with something (in this case the Scots), should have the final say on what it’s called. I’m also a “when in Rome” sort of traveler, so I know that when I’m back in Scotland, I’ll confront my usual painful dilemma—to sound either uncomfortably hoity-toity or like a clod!

If, as Simon Thomas puts it, you’re among “the unfortunate 5 percent” who don’t know what scones are, you should remedy this asap and make my recipe! Scones are reminiscent of what we in the U.S. call baking powder or soda biscuits, and, when served fresh and warm with butter, are just as addictive. Although Americans tend to think of scones as being triangular, in Britian they are in fact often cut into small rounds. They tend to be slightly sweeter than our biscuits and are more likely to contain chopped raisins, dates, currants, or candied ginger and sometimes spice, though there are plenty of “plain” scones around–like mine here.

I’m looking forward to making my scones in place of Irish soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day, and probably for Easter, too. No internal conflicts about serving them though. Everybody at my table thinks it’s fine if scone rhymes with cone.

Other breads you might like: Ariel’s seeded soda bread at left and No-knead Guinness stout yeasted bread at right.