Robert Bannister filted: Quite apart from the birds, Ford have had a Falcon model around for years. In my part of Australia, it ... On the rare occasions I hear the "fall" vowel, I assume the speaker is a recent immigrant from the UK. US

Peter Groves filted: I was with you (more or less) ... the birds themselves are in plentiful supply around these parts.. Quite apart from the birds, Ford have had a Falcon model around for years. In my part of Australia, it ... occasions I hear

Peter Groves filted: If you utter a fully released /d/ in "handbag" (hand-bag) ... this doesn't quite explain why they say "fore-head" for /forrid/. I was with you (more or less) until you hit "falcon", and I

Native speakers of English don't, unless dictating to children. In ... or "handbag" (which in rapid speech is indistinguishable from "ham-bag"). I'm English and have just a vestige of a "d" in handsome and a

Pull and book use the same vowel for me, AFAICT. Me too, but this reminds me that I knew a native Chicagoan whose "pull" sounded like "pool" to me. Btw, when you rhotists "um" and "er", do you "er"

I do think that the New York rhotic-in-fact /R/, which ... this. Some /R/s sound sort of harshly-rhotic to me That's absolutely true, in my experience. Even before I came, fairly late in life, to non-rhotic Australia, I found many Cincinnati

I do think that the New York rhotic-in-fact /R/, which may be similarly realized in rhotic and "non-rhotic" accents (and ... or Western /R/, though I have no particular proof of this. Some /R/s sound sort of harshly-rhotic to me

I don't know what song you're referring to; my interest in the thread started with seeing "AH" used to represent a pronunciation. The familiar lyric is "You say tomato, I say tomato", etc. My point is that while it is

A nonrhotic person writing to another nonrhotic person can write ... convey certain vowel sounds is misleading in an international forum. It certainly misled me for many years. I had long wondered why in the world someone showing hesitation would

With whatever vowel of their dialect they think is best expressed by "AH", of course. Yes, as a communication of pronunciation "AH" is useless. It's not as bad as that. Many, if not most people, will recognize that