Defining /A./ as the vowel phoneme used in "cot", "bother", ... have the same phoneme. There are dialects where they don't. That's not a definition of turned-script-a. It's a statement of how turned-script-a is

Note that the spelling of "Sara" suggests the "Mary" vowel, unlike the spelling of "Farrah (Fawcett)", which I pronounce with the "marry" vowel. But... but ... you and I both pronounce "Aaron" with

To what extent is this influenced by the initial consonants ... for these vowels, both issuing from the same lip shape. Having looked in a mirror, I agree with Matti: whatever internal movement of the tongue produces the two distinct RP ... of

Pondian difference? Here SFAIK it's "gefilte fish" and I've always heard that second syllable like "fill". Same pronunciation. Spelling seems to vary. In my recipe book the u has a diaresis. ^ Actually, it has an umlaut

Thus spake Raymond S. Wise: I would not expect RP speakers to pronounce "Oprah" ... written form, rather than adapting from the spoken American form. Why do you expect that? The closest word we have I "opera", and only the

My coworkers have asked me to stop muttering "Charles" over and over. I'd best not start calling it out loud. It's hard to pronounce in one syllable for a rhotic speaker, I think, without winding up sounding like Tom Brokaw.

Do you know roughly when this sound change is supposed to have happened? Not off the top of my head, but my guess is early post-Shakespeare. Perhaps earlier than that. The nature of ... /rOl/, became /rOUl/ - which is essentially the same as the

The only source I have for the pronunciation of "Czolgosz" ... interpret the ad-hoc phonetic spelling "cholgosh" - /tSolgAS/, I suppose. If the "cot" vowel was intended in the first syllable, then I don't see any

Yesterday I came upon a phonetic spelling in which "o" ... of the name of President McKinley's assassin: "Leon Czolgosz (cholgosh)." The only source I have for the pronunciation of "Czolgosz" is the cast recording

Yesterday I came upon a phonetic spelling in which "o" represented /A/ I think that's the vowel it's intended to represent, ... America,* Ramsey used a phonetic spelling to represent the pronunciation of the name of President