That's not true, but not for the reasons others have ... letters didn't all sound alike, as you said they would. BTW, I wwasn't talking about silent letters. When I try to say the alphabet without moving my lips or tongue, there are no

As someone living in Northern Ireland, the most accurate comment ... over the centuries by migrants from England, Scotland, and Wales. However, there are identifiable features which are common in speech across Northern Ireland. Those of us with

The explanation (which I find convincing, but your mileage may vary) is that the puff of air is *unvoiced*, whereas all vowels are, by definition, voiced to some extent. If you try the hand-over-mouth experiment with the word "peak", for

Charles Riggs wrote on 14 Jul 2004: If the ... "***", then why not a "twat" instead of a "twit"? Why not, indeed? If Americans can call a man a ***, the British can call a man a twat. They can I didn't know that

I think all of your cot/caught vowels sound like normative CINC AmE "aw". Suddenly you're throwing around this word "normative", which means about the same as "prescriptive". No one can be rightfully prescribing

What's the general distribution of people who do, or do not, pronounce "than" and "then" identically in casual speech? Or is it simply down to care with one's diction, wherever you are? There's one who pronounces

Tony Cooper wrote on 31 May 2004: I would not use it that way. And because you would not use it that way, no one may use it that. "You have nothing to point to but a history of incorrigible usage mistakes as your credentials". I'm

LEE Sau Dan (Email Removed) wrote on 02 Jan 2004: CyberCypher> True, but I do and I'm a native English-speaker. I didn't know that! And I want other readers of ... the sounds by the mouth are quite the same Mouth? You don't just use

It's an elliptical definition. I read Ross's line as meaning "(the vowel contained in) cot, bother...". That's still meaningless. There is no vowel that is contained in every rendition of "cot". The vowels that may

( . . . ) My ears can't detect any difference between the vowels of Bob's "call" and "Bob". I don't (yet) have formant-analysis software on my computer, so without knowing whether the vowels actually are objectively