http://www.englishforums.com/search/pro.htm?q=tag%3aVowels+tag%3aPronunciation+tag%3aWhomSearch results for 'tag:Vowels tag:Pronunciation tag:Whom' matching tags 'Vowels', 'Pronunciation', and 'Whom'en-USXMOD (Build: 3616.28671)http://www.englishforums.com/English/OnDataPronunciation/2/kzkl/Post.htm#350277Fri, 13 Apr 2007 07:55:44 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:350277anonymousI don't think there is a hard and fast rule here. However: If you have a two syllable word that ends with an 'a', it's typical that the vowel in the first is short. Like 'dada', 'feta', etc. This is not a rule so much as a pattern that should be observed. Following it, the 'da' in 'data' should not be pronounced like 'day'. Nevertheless, pronunciation and spelling in English are complicated by a number of things: most commonly from words that come from other languages. 'Datum' and 'data' belong to that category. As for the who/whom question, since when is this controversial? Whom is an object pronoun like 'her', 'him', 'them' etc. (a) I went to the movies with Sarah. (b) You went with WHOM? It's out of popular use, but I...http://www.englishforums.com/English/HowWouldPronounceTheseForeignNames/kmzl/post.htm#52977Sun, 31 Oct 2004 22:36:49 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:52977mister micawberHi Demicjusz (whom I call 'Demi' not because I thought you were female, but because the combination of vowels in your suffix are difficult to remember and copy down), No excuses, no analogies-- I just incorporate what sounds I seem to remember about some foreign languages of which these might be examples, and plunge in. 'Genre' is English, retaining (to a varying degree) its French pronunciation, so that is general knowledge. I have no precedents to rely on for my Chinese pronunciation; I have a little for my Germanic, hence the 'ü' in '-bruk'. I use that knowledge if I have it. Also, I don't have a full set of IPA symbols, which I would dearly love to find somewhere. Any sources?http://www.englishforums.com/English/ThenThanPronunciation/5/lqzcm/Post.htm#999620Thu, 02 Sep 2004 13:45:27 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:999620aaron j. dinkinYou serious? Most people in the western US, including, I ... pronunciation. It might be harder to hear than PIP, though. Serious! That sounds to my ear more like a Boston thing, eg, "I caht a fish". Portland (Oregon) was within a coin toss of being named Boston but we've never had their accent. I'm surprised you should indicate that you perceive the Boston merged "cot"/"caught" vowel as "ah". The vowel that the Boston accent uses in both of those words is a rounded vowel, more similar to the "aw" of typical dialects that make the distinction than to the "ah". And the Bostonian "ah" is something else again. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whomhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/ThenThanPronunciation/4/lqzcm/Post.htm#999020Wed, 01 Sep 2004 12:10:18 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:999020jonathan jordanInteresting. I cannot understand how "pen" and "pin" couldpossibly be ... pawn/porn, Shaw/shore - homophones Is it this rhotic business again? Yes, I'd say the pawn/porn thing is "rhotic business." For those ofus who are rhotic, "or" is a completely different sound than "aw", I think that viewpoint suggests a CIC accent. For me, "aw" and "or" suggest the same vowel - the difference is just the /r/. So for me "pawn" and "porn" are /pOn/ and /pOrn/ - same vowel phoneme, but "porn" contains an /r/. As for pen/pin, the people who say them the same for whom theyare homophones lean toward the way I'd say "pin". Someone must...http://www.englishforums.com/English/ThenThanPronunciation/4/lqzcm/Post.htm#999019Wed, 01 Sep 2004 11:34:36 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:999019donna richouxDonna Richoux typed thus: That'll be me. Guilty on all ... that I was saying "Shore". Or the other way around. Interesting. I cannot understand how "pen" and "pin" could possibly be confused (except perhaps by a South African), and to ... and "porn", or "Shaw" and "shaw". pen/pin - totally different pawn/porn, Shaw/shore - homophones Is it this rhotic business again? Yes, I'd say the pawn/porn thing is "rhotic business." For those of us who are rhotic, "or" is a completely different sound than "aw", and the pawn/porn of non-rhotic people just happens to illustrate that. I find it interesting that certain combinations *don't* appear more...http://www.englishforums.com/English/PlaceNamePronunciations/3/lxmhk/Post.htm#991498Sat, 14 Aug 2004 04:44:32 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:991498r j valentine}> }> I can half understand why we don't say Paree, but why shouldn't }> English speaking people be able to sort out the local pronunciations }> of proper nouns in English speaking countries? Why do all English }> people, it seems when I listen to the BBC, pronounce 'Maryland' as }> 'Mary land' and 'Hewlett Packard' as 'Hewlett PACK ard' instead of }> 'Mare lind' (Ok, I can't do Fontanian symbols) } } Say what? In New York we pronounce "Maryland" as though it were written } "Merralind" /mEr@l@nd/ "merry" vowel in the first syllable and schwa in } the second. Three syllables. "Merralind" is pretty much how people have...http://www.englishforums.com/English/Nevoda/5/ljzgp/Post.htm#972340Sat, 07 Aug 2004 18:57:33 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:972340areffThe vowel /&/ seems to be politically incorrect. Notice how ... "Nevoda". Apparently, it is PC to change /&/ to /A/. "Nev/a/da" is the usual pronunciation in the Northeast. I'm not sure how far west it extends; but among people for whom "Nev/a/da" is standard, "Nev/&/da" sounds uneducated. Yes, even though that's how people from Nevada say it. It were my understanding that "Nev/a/da" is the standard AmE pronunciation everywhere *but* Nevada. Something similar goes for Colorado, doesn't it?http://www.englishforums.com/English/Nevoda/ljzgp/post.htm#964561Thu, 22 Jul 2004 13:50:13 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:964561aaron j. dinkinThe vowel /&/ seems to be politically incorrect. Notice how the media gradually started pronouncing Iraq as "erock". And then there was Bush's "Nevoda". Apparently, it is PC to change /&/ to /A/. "Nev/a/da" is the usual pronunciation in the Northeast. I'm not sure how far west it extends; but among people for whom "Nev/a/da" is standard, "Nev/&/da" sounds uneducated. Yes, even though that's how people from Nevada say it. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whomhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/SpellingSoundsInEnglish/2/lwwwr/Post.htm#962504Mon, 19 Jul 2004 02:23:10 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:962504robert bannisteraccent circonflexe) % is that diacritic I have never known the name ... smiley - so %u means a smiley over the u. That diacritic is called a "breve" in English. Thanks for that. I always wondered. - prince. There may well be people for whom 'prince' and 'prints' are homophones, but I still think 'prints' would have been a better example. I agree. MWCD11 has for the pronunciation of "prince" "'prin(t)s". Something like "hats" would be better. Agreed. I can't think of an imported German word where most English speakers would say the z as ts (Zeitgeist). The word "zeitgeist" has the same problem as "tsar": They have more than one pronunciation....http://www.englishforums.com/English/SpellingSoundsInEnglish/lwwwr/post.htm#962481Mon, 19 Jul 2004 01:21:32 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:962481raymond s. wiseI stopped reading Katherine Kerr when the same mistake was perpetuated in her 3rd or 4th book: she gave 'thin' ... of an o - I like to call it a smiley - so %u means a smiley over the u. That diacritic is called a "breve" in English. Begin quote: There are no silent letters; every word word is pronounced as it isspelled. Vowels are sounded ah, eh, ... be people for whom 'prince' and 'prints' are homophones, but I still think 'prints' would have been a better example. I agree. MWCD11 has for the pronunciation of "prince" "'prin(t)s". Something like "hats" would be better. I can't think of an imported German word where most English speakers would say the z as...http://www.englishforums.com/English/IreWords/4/lwzpv/Post.htm#960472Sat, 17 Jul 2004 00:57:59 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:960472aaron j. dinkinDidn't someone in a.u.e and sci.lang propose this phonemic constrast ... as /t/ in one word and /d/ in the other). Can you identify your two nuclei with those two nuclei? Phonetically, definitely. Phonemically - I guess so. My phonemic intuition regards "writer" and "rider" as having the same nucleus, but it also regards "fire" and "wire" as having the same nucleus, so who knows? Regarding /ay/ and /Vy/ as separate phonemes would allow me to explain my pronunciation of "spider" (***) (not rhyming with "cider") without having to attribute the flap in "spider" to /t/. I guess so. It'd be "wire" /wayr/ and "fire" /fVyr/, where /V/ denotes the...http://www.englishforums.com/English/IreWords/2/lwzpv/Post.htm#960438Fri, 16 Jul 2004 22:34:48 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:960438mike lyleI have come to the sudden realization that I don't ... and I can't say (wVjr). -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom I pronounce them all in the same way. But I have heard others pronounce them differently, as you say. Fi-uhr, with a schwa. But no one says di-uhr. I've done some 'trials', and though it's hard to be objective about one's own pronunciations I think I agree that all have the same sound in my kind of non-rhotic RP. But I disagree that nobody says 'di-uh' (daj@) (I hope this works: I've put my copy of Evan's ASCII IPA somewhere recondite): as I've suggested before, speakers of my dialect and I imagine most others have more than one pronunciation according to stress, position in sentence,...http://www.englishforums.com/English/IreWords/4/lwzpv/Post.htm#960257Fri, 16 Jul 2004 17:48:52 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:960257aaron j. dinkinA.u.e: Does anyone else have these two different "-ire"s? Consciously or unconsciously? With the same distribution as mine or different? When I come to think about it, it appears that words in your first list are slightly shorter sounds. But they're the same sound otherwise. Is your short/long difference here the same as that you have (if you do) for /aI/ before voiceless codas? As I said, my diphthong in "fire" (before the (r)) is the same as the one I have in "height"; the one in "mire" is the same as the one I have in "hide". Sci.lang: Same question as a.u.e, plus: How should this be ... noticed before? Same underlying vowels, different syllable structure? Or what? To me: Same...http://www.englishforums.com/English/SecsSoundSoundsLikeSex/2/lgnmb/Post.htm#952969Wed, 07 Jul 2004 18:26:26 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:952969aaron j. dinkinSince 'Juan' is often pronounced as 'one', this is getting confusing. The standard AmE Anglicized pronunciation of "Juan" has the 'father' vowel (rhyming with "John" in most AmE dialects); Hum. I've always pronounced (in English) with my non-"father" "John" vowel. I expect this may have something to do with the influence of the previous /w/, which produces the "John" vowel for written in lots of words. Foreign words usually get the "father" vowel for , however; and I can't tell you why "Juan" would follow the English-orthography rule instead. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whomhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/HowDictionariesPronounce/6/lgdph/Post.htm#951104Fri, 02 Jul 2004 01:37:22 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:951104aaron j. dinkinI'm confused by your "help" reference. What I intended to ... AmE dictionary that I have seen. Thanks for the help. To a Southerner, (hEj@lp) is exactly the pronunciation that an AmE dictionay indicates. And it's not necessarily two syllables; it may just be one syllable with a very long vowel. Maybe Southerners typically pronounce 'l' as a a diphthong? So if the dictionary says it's pronounced "help", they interpret 'e' to mean 'AY' and 'l' to mean 'ul'. Do they say, for instance, belt as BAY-ult? Yes, but the "l" has nothing to do with it. A characteristic feature of the Southern accent is that some so-called short vowels become triphthongs (i.e.,...http://www.englishforums.com/English/HowDictionariesPronounce/7/lgdph/Post.htm#951007Thu, 01 Jul 2004 20:40:36 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:951007aaron j. dinkinYes, but why do American dictionaries choose *my* pronunciation over someone from Alabama, or Massachusetts, or Wisconsin? There are glaring and drastic differences in pronunciation from region to region. There are, certainly. But, as I said elsewhere, American dictionaries can ignore the systematic differences. The class of words in which you say (E) is essentially the same as the class of words in which someone from Tuscaloosa says (Ej@) or someone from Flint says (V") (or whatever the most extreme Northern Cities version of that vowel is), and the exceptions to that are themselves mostly systematic. So all the dictionary needs to indicate is that such-and-such a word contains the same vowel as "pet", and you can do the...http://www.englishforums.com/English/HowDictionariesPronounce/7/lgdph/Post.htm#950915Thu, 01 Jul 2004 16:57:51 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:950915aaron j. dinkinI don't necessarily agree with this. "Dictionaries describe the most *usual* pronunciation"?? What does "most usual" mean? The densest and ... There are a great many people in the South that pronounce "help" as "HEY-ulp"...why isn't that included in the dictionary? Well, because American dictionaries typically don't give strict phonetic prescriptions; rather, the pronunciation descriptions given by American dictionaries are generally of a phonemic type, which indicate how a word fits into the pattern of sounds within a given accent. So what the dictionary indicates is that "help" is pronounced with essentially the same vowel as "pet" and "get", and that is...http://www.englishforums.com/English/NotAboutCienfuegos/4/lzqcw/Post.htm#949204Wed, 30 Jun 2004 19:15:47 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:949204aaron j. dinkinIt seems pretty clear to me that Richard means that ... would prefer to spell as "aw" rather than as "ah". Why he would want to spell it "aw" passes understanding, since he has also implied that "aw" may be a low back vowel. I don't think I get your point. Isn't your merged "ah"/"aw" a low back vowel? It's not true at all that he's saying nothing. He's ... his own ear interprets a particular vowel in your speech). I'm not a mind-reader. I don't know how his ear interprets anything. That's why he tells you. And telling me that his ear interprets a sound as "aw" tells me nothing unless I can associate a useful ... himself if anyone,...http://www.englishforums.com/English/NotAboutCienfuegos/6/lzqcw/Post.htm#949184Wed, 30 Jun 2004 18:36:35 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:949184bob cunninghamTrue. But they share at least one thing in common: they're distinct. And I think they share other things in common too. For example, "ah" is never rounded; "ah" is never to the back of "aw". "Ideal" by what standard, and "preferred" by whom? No one has a right to call any pronunciation ideal. I mean that one could demonstrate that certain ah and aw realizations are more prestigious or standard than others. You say one could, but I doubt that one could. Who is to decide that some pronunciation is more prestigious than some other? There is no way that any pronunciation can be more standard than others, because there is no standard for the English language. A pronunciation that might...http://www.englishforums.com/English/NotAboutCienfuegos/6/lzqcw/Post.htm#949166Wed, 30 Jun 2004 17:20:41 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:949166areffTrue. But they share at least one thing in common: they're distinct. And I think they share other things in common too. For example, "ah" is never rounded; "ah" is never to the back of "aw". and that these concepts refer to a range of sounds, including certain ideal or preferred subsets. "Ideal" by what standard, and "preferred" by whom? No one has a right to call any pronunciation ideal. I mean that one could demonstrate that certain ah and aw realizations are more prestigious or standard than others. In particular, I believe that the most "ideal" ah/cot vowel in AmE is a low, central, unrounded vowel. It's similar to how you can demonstrate that in today's AmE...http://www.englishforums.com/English/NotAboutCienfuegos/3/lzqcw/Post.htm#948953Wed, 30 Jun 2004 11:23:41 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:948953aaron j. dinkinIndeed, that's what we CINCs have been saying all along: your "ah" sounds like "aw" to us. If you say that to me, you say nothing. As a description of a sound, "aw" has no useful meaning. It seems pretty clear to me that Richard means that your "ah" sounds like a vowel that, if he himself said it, he would prefer to spell as "aw" rather than as "ah". (It also seems pretty clear to me that when he says "we" and "us" in the quotes sentence, he means 'I' and 'me'.) It's not true at all that he's saying nothing. He's not giving information of the kind you may want to be given (namely, phonetic description of a particular vowel in...http://www.englishforums.com/English/GershwinSaysErstersBaloney/17/lzmnw/Post.htm#947459Mon, 28 Jun 2004 23:11:01 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:947459aaron j. dinkinIf I want you to use the vowel of your ... order to accomplish that? What would you suggest I write? Before I made a suggestion, I would want to be persuaded that there was some good reason for you to want me to use a vowel when you don't know what that vowel is. Because your dialect has a coherent system, consistent with itself, and - given that I know it's a dialect of English - I can be pretty sure it has at least one vowel in a particular class, and indicate it even if I don't know exactly which vowel it is. If I write a word in an ad-hoc pronunciation spelling (without further specification), it's because I want you to pronounce it in a way that is coherent and consistent with that system. I don't want you to...http://www.englishforums.com/English/FatherDifferentTwist/4/lzjvd/Post.htm#947313Mon, 28 Jun 2004 18:07:06 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:947313aaron j. dinkinSouthern? I'm from Massachusetts, which is nearly as non-Southern as you can get, and I have /E/ in 'be able' "can". In my kind of talk, in the sense you mention, can falls into the "short i" category (Us usage). Or, ... (or jist) hear you talk." And a bit less clearly, a schwa replaces the vowel. "I k'n go with you". Do you have the "pin"/"pen" merger? (If so, where are you from?) If you do, your "kin" pronunciation of 'be able' "can" should fall into the same category as Joe's and my "ken". -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whomhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/GershwinSaysErstersBaloney/16/lzmnw/Post.htm#947237Mon, 28 Jun 2004 13:42:58 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:947237aaron j. dinkinWith whatever vowel of their dialect they think is best expressed by "AH", of course. Yes, as a communication of pronunciation "AH" is useless. How's that? If I want you to use the vowel of your dialect that you think is best expressed by "AH", most likely that that you use in the word "blah", how can it be useless for me to write something like "poTAHtoe" in order to accomplish that? What would you suggest I write? You didn't comment on "ersters". Does that somehow fail to have a disadvantage that "poTAHtoe" has? -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whomhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/UsEnglish/8/lvwrb/Post.htm#946783Sun, 27 Jun 2004 02:29:30 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:946783aaron j. dinkinIn classical Latin pronunciation as understood today, "C" would be ... if that was a long vowel and the otherwise. I didn't think the Romans did stress. I thought (in poetry at least) it was all to do with long and short vowels - something I never did quite grasp. Latin poetry is all to do with long and short vowels, but the language also had stressed syllables (which weren't relevant to poetic meter). As Mark suggests, stress was on the penultimate syllable if long, the antepenultimate otherwise. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whomhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/TrilledR/5/kqxdb/Post.htm#925960Tue, 01 Jun 2004 17:36:30 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:925960aaron j. dinkinNot at all (though that may be the use of ... in "cut" in the most conventionally standard varieties of English. Well, I wasn't being entirely serious. But I'm sure I've read something that implied that the 19th century RP "cut" ... the IPA symbol, and that that was at least part of the reason for the way that (V) is used. That's certainly possible. But I'd suggest that a contributing factor to the reason (V) is still used, after all that time, instead of being replaced by a symbol that represents a central vowel, is phonological theory's general indifference between central and back vowels. Whatever the reason, it seems to me to be potentially confusing. How would you write a vowel used in...http://www.englishforums.com/English/TrilledR/4/kqxdb/Post.htm#925309Tue, 01 Jun 2004 02:07:25 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:925309aaron j. dinkinI think (V) - as it's conventionally used, not as ... mean the latter here to correspond to IPA "turned a". Isn't the conventional use of (V) just to describe whatever vowel sound occurs in "cut" in the variety of English in question? Not at all (though that may be the use of /V/). The conventional use of (V), at least with respect to English, is to represent a central unrounded vowel higher than (a) and lower than (@) - which, as it happens, is the vowel used in "cut" in the most conventionally standard varieties of English. The official definition of (V) is as a back unrounded vowel of the same height, and after a year of grad school I think I have understood why: It seems that typical theories of...http://www.englishforums.com/English/TrilledR/4/kqxdb/Post.htm#924435Mon, 31 May 2004 10:28:38 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:924435aaron j. dinkino you mean the "father" vowel (usually /A:/ in RP ... admit that I find /Ti:A:tA:/ bizarre (or at least retired-colonel-ish). No, I don't know how to write it, but the a I mean is sort of on the a side of schwa. I think (V) - as it's conventionally used, not as it's officially defined - would probably do you here; if not that, then (V"). I mean the latter here to correspond to IPA "turned a". -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whomhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/InterestingArticleAuesFirst/20/jldgm/Post.htm#807563Thu, 15 Jan 2004 06:57:44 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:807563aaron j. dinkinWhen I try to pronounce (IN), (&N), or {EN), it seems difficult and unnatural. But (A:N) (as in "wrong") and (VN) (as in "hung") are no problem. I find (&N) unnatural to pronounce as well, but no more so than I find (&n) or (&m). When I've got /&/ before /N/, I think it comes out as something a lot higher than (&), maybe even (e). I analyze this as /&/ rather than /e/ for the reasons detailed in my previous posting. No (EN)? How do you pronounce "strength"? (I have different vowels in "strength" and, for instance, "ankle".) As I've already mentioned, I can't say whether I've got (IN) or not. I can't think at the moment of any English words...http://www.englishforums.com/English/Anytime/5/jjnjg/Post.htm#801745Sun, 11 Jan 2004 05:41:21 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:801745aaron j. dinkinI've always wondered why English dictionaries use IPA instead of the idiosyncratic systems they force their users to decipher tradition, probably. IPA, whatever the variant, makes much more sense, especially to people who have learned other languages. I assume you missed a "don't" or the like in the first sentence somewhere. Some English dictionaries do use IPA, of course. Among the ones that don't, a reason for them to avoid IPA (apart from tradition, which probably is a strong factor also) is that using IPA would restrict their applicability to a smaller dialect subpopulation than their idiosyncratic systems do. Any particular IPA symbol you might use to represent the vowel in a word like "hot", for...http://www.englishforums.com/English/ParlorTrickPeanutButter-Jelly/8/hcmwn/Post.htm#783132Sun, 21 Dec 2003 06:21:03 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:783132aaron j. dinkinObAUE: You're "on to something" or "onto something"? /An t@/, never /Antu/. I don't detect any difference in pronunciation between "onto" and "on to". They both have /@/ before consonants and /u/ before vowels. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whomhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/SpelingRefohrm/19/jbzzm/Post.htm#773192Thu, 11 Dec 2003 16:41:21 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:773192aaron j. dinkinThere are a few words which tend to have the ... the same) - half, halve, calf, can't, shan't, banana, rather. Also there are still a handful of AmE speakers that follow the southern England approach (mainly in Eastern New England). Yes, but: "Banana" is an interesting example, since for New York speakers the "lax can" vowel is used, not the "tense can" vowel. I think I've heard patrician Northeastern US speakers use the "father" vowel in "banana", though (so too with "tomato"). I don't think so; I've never heard the "father" vowel in "banana" from an American, and my grandparents both usually have bananas in the house and have fairly...http://www.englishforums.com/English/WhatFlavorsDonuts/5/wqnbr/Post.htm#752893Sun, 23 Nov 2003 07:12:16 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:752893aaron j. dinkinIn English, "lox" means 'smoked salmon'. Yes and no. I thought that what made it lox was curing it in brine and that smoking it was actually optional. Ah, really? I had no idea. I had always been told that what lox is is smoked salmon, and had no reason to doubt it. AHD and OED, which distinguish "cot"-vowels from "father"-vowels, both give the pronunciation of "lox" with the "cot"-vowel. I've always said it with either the "father"-vowel or the "cut"-vowel. It doesn't sound like "locks". "Nosh", which gets the same treatment as "lox" from both dictionaries, I also say with the "father"-vowel. I used to say it...http://www.englishforums.com/English/NewPageSitePronunciationNewsgroup-ContributorsNames/31/wgqcv/Post.htm#732225Tue, 04 Nov 2003 23:52:34 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:732225aaron j. dinkinI certainly hear "marry" as different from the other two. ... close to my "merry", but probably there is a difference. I hear something between a "slight" difference and very different. I think the distinction is clearer in the M/M/M sentence at the end of the recording than the one nearer the beginning. The (O@) in (the second) "long" and "coffee" is very noticeable, at least to this Rightpondian who uses the "cot" vowel in those words. Same to this Leftpondian who has little or no "cot" vowel in your sense. Eh? I think the sense is "the vowel in the word 'cot'". The pronunciation of "Nancy" is probably the single most American-sounding...http://www.englishforums.com/English/NewPageSitePronunciationNewsgroup-ContributorsNames/19/wgqcv/Post.htm#719662Fri, 24 Oct 2003 01:43:34 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:719662aaron j. dinkinMost of the "ah" class comes from recent loanwords like "pasta". "Pasta" may be a good example of AmE "foreign a", but I don't think it's a good example of the "ah" class. I think it's almost always pronounced with the "cat" vowel in BrE. I said like "pasta".. Actually, I knew that "pasta" is usually pronounced with the "cat" vowel in BrE, but I couldn't think of a recent loanword that I was confident would have "ah" on both sides of the Pond. I would still guess that most British "ah" (as distinct from "tense a" and possibly from "ar" as well) comes from recent loanwords. OED, for instance,...http://www.englishforums.com/English/NewPageSitePronunciationNewsgroup-ContributorsNames/27/wgqcv/Post.htm#719396Thu, 23 Oct 2003 20:25:08 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:719396aaron j. dinkin) I'm tentatively describing that as "tense a" rather than "ah": ... that have a split short-a system have their tense /& ^/. By Jove, I think you're right! Well, or at least it's a proper subset of that /& ^/ class. That's weird, and calls to mind (FWIW) R.J. Valentine's baffling perception of my (supposedly Jamaican) pronunciation of "man" in the "catamaran" recording. I don't think it's that weird. Note that the environment of "tense o" is also similar, though not identical, to the environment of "tense a". There seems to be a cross-dialectal tendency for tensing of lowish vowels in certain environments such as before voiceless fricatives,...http://www.englishforums.com/English/PassPaess/wjwqc/post.htm#716297Tue, 21 Oct 2003 15:11:48 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:716297aaron j. dinkinIt's my understanding that in U.S. dialects that don't have a tense-/& ^/ versus lax-/& / distinction, /&/ is usually tense in all contexts for Northern Cities speakers, and tense before nasals and ... context I mean 'closer to (e@) or (E@) than (&)'. What would you mean by "tense" and "lax" in general? There's nothing intrinsically "lax" about the IPA symbol (&), is ... /r/) have, which I think might be some sort of "tenseness". But I'm really not sure about this. Any idea? I'm not entirely sure, and I gather that there's some sort of uncertainty among phonologists about what exactly "tense" means in phonetic/ articulatory terms. But...http://www.englishforums.com/English/NewPageSitePronunciationNewsgroup-ContributorsNames/15/wgqcv/Post.htm#715950Tue, 21 Oct 2003 03:59:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:715950aaron j. dinkinI believe that what Jerry is referring to is the ... this, but a recording by Mr. Hamm may prove enlightening. You can be skeptical, but it's the case: I (in general) have /A/ before a voiced stop (and in ) and /a/ before a voiceless one. That doesn't mean that /A/ and /a/ are different phonemes for you. Can you think of any pair of words, or possible words, that would be distinguished by having /A/ in one and /a/ in the other? Or words that would rhyme were it not for the difference between /A/ and /a/? (The latter criterion isn't sufficient(1), but it's often useful.) For instance, I have /A/ in "bother" but /a/ in "father". Would you have the same vowel in both? For a minimal pair, I have the same...http://www.englishforums.com/English/AhArAwOrAwAhAr/8/whnzz/Post.htm#712654Fri, 17 Oct 2003 13:45:03 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:712654aaron j. dinkinDefining /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 used. A definition should say what something is, not how it's used. That is a definition of /A./: what /A./ is is a particular vowel phoneme. Which one? It's the one found in "cot", "bother", "Ross", and "Bob" in the dialect at issue. This is an unambiguous definition; moreover, it's defined in terms of the things that phonemed ought to be defined in terms of. A definition of IPA turned-script-a is that it's the low, back, rounded vowel. This...http://www.englishforums.com/English/AhArAwOrAwAhAr/12/whnzz/Post.htm#712124Thu, 16 Oct 2003 22:55:21 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:712124aaron j. dinkinNote 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 the "marry" vowel (IIRCWRTY). Surely you don't consider the "aa" in "Aaron" to call for special treatment! I don't think the spelling of "Aaron" suggests either pronunciation; the is too unusual for ordinary guidelines to apply. I'll grant you that a double r is more likely to (is always going to?) suggest "marry". But lots of single r words have "marry" in my dialect, Fair enough. Me too. I suppose my pronunciation of...http://www.englishforums.com/English/AhArAwOrAwAhAr/10/whnzz/Post.htm#711520Thu, 16 Oct 2003 15:07:29 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:711520aaron j. dinkinI have something close to (A.) in "bother" as well ... rounded enough to be more (A.) than (A), I think. I like to remind myself that the phonetics books tell us the rounding of the vowels on the "back" side of the quadrilateral decreases from top to bottom. This should mean that (A.) is less rounded that (O), and much less rounded than (u). Indeed. And this squares with my impression that the RP (A.) is higher than my own - but, again, not so high as to be more (O) than (A.). -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whomhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/AhArAwOrAwAhAr/10/whnzz/Post.htm#710330Wed, 15 Oct 2003 18:49:40 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:710330aaron j. dinkinIn Received Pronunciation, "bother" is (bA.D@), "father" is (fA:D@). That is, they're the same vowel except that the one in "bother" is rounded, while the one in "father" is not. And the one in "bother" is noticeably shorter. I have something close to (A.) in "bother" as well (and other words of the "cot" and "caught" classes), but it's longer than the British (A.), and noticeably less tightly rounded as well - although still rounded enough to be more (A.) than (A), I think. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whomhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/NewPageSitePronunciationNewsgroup-ContributorsNames/wgqcv/post.htm#704065Sat, 11 Oct 2003 01:45:45 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:704065aaron j. dinkinMy 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. There's nothing either monosyllabic or disyllabic but thinking makes it so. That is to say, when you've got a bunch of vocoids (=vowels or semivowels) and liquids together, whether or not they form separate syllables or one heavy syllable has more to do, I think, with the way such a pronunciation patterns in your dialect than the actual acoustic form of the word. This is especially true in English, which is a stress-timed language - i.e., having more or fewer syllables doesn't actually...http://www.englishforums.com/English/Xenophobia/3/wrqjv/Post.htm#676643Sat, 04 Oct 2003 02:44:32 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:676643aaron j. dinkinThe 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 way of clearly indicating that in "phonetic spelling" (given that is unacceptable for those of us who don't rhyme "father" and "bother"). Indeed. The "cot" vowel is very difficult to unambiguously express in ad-hoc phonetic spellings. If I were trying to express it for "Czolgosz" I'd probably write something like "choll-gosh" - for some reason "choll" seems more likely to suggest /tSA.l/ to me than does...http://www.englishforums.com/English/Xenophobia/3/wrqjv/Post.htm#676333Fri, 03 Oct 2003 20:01:53 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:676333aaron j. dinkinYesterday 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 McKinley's assassin: "Leon Czolgosz (cholgosh)." The only source I have for the pronunciation of "Czolgosz" is the cast recording of the musical Assassins . On that, the vowel in the first syllable seems to be the same as that in "bold", and the vowel in the second syllable seems to be the same as that in "hot". I don't know how accurate that is, but that's how I would interpret the ad-hoc phonetic spelling "cholgosh" - /tSolgAS/, I...http://www.englishforums.com/English/SubstituteForAsciiIpa/2/hxpqj/Post.htm#658599Sat, 06 Sep 2003 14:42:44 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:658599aaron j. dinkinIf two pronunciations have vowels from different phonemes, then the broad-phonetic transcriptions of those two pronunciations should use symbols corresponding to the appropriate phonemes. From this paragraph it sounds like what you're advocating is a phonemic transcription under the name of a broad phonetic transcription. For instance, under any reasonably broad phonetic transcription my pronunciations of "man" and "mare" would have the same vowel, but as they belong to different phonemes, you'd suggest that they be transcribed by different symbols. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whomhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/SubstituteForAsciiIpa/2/hxpqj/Post.htm#658595Sat, 06 Sep 2003 14:22:03 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:658595aaron j. dinkinIn that Chambers list, I approximately have two allophones for that 'ee' or /i/ vowel. One comprises the vowel heard in lean/dene/chief/seize; the other comprises the vowel heard in keel/gear/hear/sheer/query. "Gear"? Say, for my whole life I've been pronouncing "gear" with two syllables, /gi @r/, so it rhymes with "peer" 'one who pees' and not with "peer" 'one's equal'. I see this pronunciation isn't in AHD. Did I just make it up? -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whomhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/SubstituteForAsciiIpa/hxpqj/post.htm#658592Sat, 06 Sep 2003 14:20:01 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:658592aaron j. dinkinThe Chambers Dictionary (1993 edition) has a pronunciation symbol that they say corresponds to the vowels in "lean, keel, ... query". Is there anyone in the English speaking world who pronounces "here" and "lean" with even approximately the same vowel? My vowels in "here" and "lean" are phonetically approximately the same; and phonemically, they're exactly the same; that is to say, I think of them as the same vowel, and it is only with effort that I'm conscious of the difference between them. The vowels in my "hear" and "lean" are much more similar than those in my "mat" and "man". -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom