http://www.englishforums.com/search/pro.htm?q=tag%3aVowels+tag%3aPronunciation+tag%3aWritingSearch results for 'tag:Vowels tag:Pronunciation tag:Writing' matching tags 'Vowels', 'Pronunciation', and 'Writing'en-USXMOD (Build: 3607.32596)http://www.englishforums.com/English/SOrEsInSimplePresent/lvqlb/post.htm#943212Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:20:44 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:943212philipFor the third person singular, use s . It's pronunciation will depend on what comes before it: voiced consonant or vowel /z/; unvoiced consonant /s/. animals, cows; pets For a word ending in /s/ or /z/ sound , use es (unless the spelling of the word ends in e : then just s . This gives a schwa sound +/z/. basses ; (phases) Sounds difficult? Not really. The spelling is simply a reflection of the natural pronunciation. Welcome to the forums, Mo.http://www.englishforums.com/English/HydrodynamicHydrodynamic/jmczx/post.htm#870792Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:48:16 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:870792anonymousUsing “a” and “an” Before Words Raphael asks: When should I use “a” and when should I use “an” before the different words? For example, should I say “a hour” or “an hour?” I stumble over this everytime and dont’t know if I’m getting it right, as I’m not speaking and writing English natively. The Rule The rule states that “a” should be used before words that begin with consonants (e.g., b, c ,d) while “an” should be used before words that begin with vowels (e.g., a,e,i). Notice, however, that the usage is determined by the pronunciation and not by the spelling, as many people wrongly assume. You should say, therefore, “an hour” (because hour begins with a vowel sound) and “a history” (because history begins with a consonant...http://www.englishforums.com/English/FrontAcronymInflowProtocol/jxhdw/post.htm#822568Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:59:36 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:822568yankeeIf the pronunciation of "LIP" is " e l-eye-pee", then you should use "an". The rule for using "an" is not based on spelling. It is based on pronunciation. If the initial sound is a vowel sound, then you use "an", not "a".http://www.englishforums.com/English/DoubleConsonantsVerbsInfinitive/wmqmh/post.htm#732122Sat, 16 May 2009 02:09:19 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:732122alpheccastarsIt is just convention. English spelling is not 100% consistent or regular. There have been many attempts at spelling reform, but none so far has gained any traction. There is no "academy" for English, as there can be for other languages. The convention may be based on the origins of the words in Latin, Greek, Germanic, or others such as Old French. That being said, though, I tried to generalize a phonetic rule that fits. S and Z are voiced/unvoiced equivalents, and L, F, S, Z are all continuants. M, N are continuants, but they are also nasals. ck cannot be considered a doubling, it is a digraph, an alternate spelling of the K sound. There are no verbs (at least common ones) ending in J or V. When a verb ends in W, I...http://www.englishforums.com/English/WhatIsASyllable/wzgjx/post.htm#694638Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:15:41 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:694638danielrams07syllable Segment of speech usually consisting of a vowel with or without accompanying consonant sounds (e.g., a , I , out , too , cap , snap , check ). A syllabic consonant, like the final n sound in button and widen , also constitutes a syllable. Closed (checked) syllables end in a consonant, open (free) syllables in a vowel. Syllables play an important role in the study of speech and in phonetics and phonology . girl have 1 go have 1 rain 2 famous 2 hour 1 double 2 prison 2 A syllable is a basic unit of written and spoken language. It is a unit consisting of uninterrupted sound that can be used to make up words. For example, the word hotel has two syllables: ho and tel . These will be marked here as in ho/tel . Counting Syllables ...http://www.englishforums.com/English/VowelLengthDistinctionVoiced-Consonants/vwmcm/post.htm#657927Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:00:31 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:657927zeroxI think the terms you are looking for are called 'vowel length' and 'vowel duration'. As it has been mentioned, vowels before fortis sounds tend to be shorter because the fortis sound needs more power, that is, it is aspirated. Now, vowel length is a phenomenon in which different vowels are placed in the same phonetic environment (minimal pairs: /pit/ vs. /pi:t/), whereas vowel duration refers to the exact amount of time the same vowel lasts in different environments ( change of a fortis consonant to its lenis counterpart, for example). Obviously, the differences in duration are hard to notice by ear, but they still affect one's pronunciation. These three examples should expound the difference with the vowel sound:...http://www.englishforums.com/English/TrySayingTheAlphabet/5/hnwzk/Post.htm#651190Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:07:26 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:651190charles a liebermanPeter Groves Sun, 09 Nov 2008 02:44:19 GMT > Daniel Jones' EPD, which describes a pre-war kind of RP, gives the pronunciations /f(OR)lk@n/ (I'm using (OR) for the vowel of "fall") and /fOLlk@n/ (as in "folly") and notes that /f(OR)k@n/ (without the /l/) "is the usual pronunciation among those who practise the sport of falconry". What's the archipelago near the Argentinean coast (if it isn't /ma:lvIna:s/)? I read of falcons before I saw them, so I go by the spelling pronunciation /f&lk@n/. I say John Woods's character's name from "WarGames" the same way. Charles A. Lieberman > "The explanation is extremely simple. Brooklyn, New York, USA > It doesn't...http://www.englishforums.com/English/TrySayingTheAlphabet/4/hnwzk/Post.htm#651097Sun, 09 Nov 2008 02:44:19 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:651097peter grovesPeter 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 the "fall" vowel, I assume the speaker is a recent immigrant from the UK. Rob Bannister It's the same in my part (Melbourne). But the car appeared after the spelling pronunciation became established, I assume. Daniel Jones' EPD, which describes a pre-war kind of RP, gives the pronunciations /f(OR)lk@n/ (I'm using (OR) for the vowel of "fall") and /fOLlk@n/ (as in "folly") and notes that /f(OR)k@n/ (without the /l/) "is the usual pronunciation among...http://www.englishforums.com/English/TrySayingTheAlphabet/2/hnwzk/Post.htm#650978Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:23:04 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:650978peter grovesNative 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 subdued but audible one in sandwich, but a full one in handbag (hand-bag). If you utter a fully released /d/ in "handbag" (hand-bag) you're using a spelling pronunciation, which is normally a result of the word in question going out of daily use. I'm English too, but I live in Australia and while my students don't say "cup-board" because they use the word on a daily basis, they do say "waist-coat", "boat-swain", "grind-stone" and...http://www.englishforums.com/English/WhenIsWAVowel/6/mwbn/Post.htm#570368Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:02:28 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:570368missmandyThis debate really seems to be about two different things, spelling and pronunciation. The letter w (and y) is often used with other vowels (and sometimes alone as well) in spelling to reperesent a vowel sound . In the words hi and by , the letter i and the letter y are representing the same sound. To add to the confusion, English has many diphthongs, or two-sound vowels. Two-sound vowels often begin or end in a sound very similar to a w sound or y sound. The easiest to here are oy (boy) and ow (cow), which can also be spelled oi (coin) and ou (house). So, it is very clear, that in spelling , w and y are like vowels. Our educators have found it much easier to just tell our kids that those letters are vowels because they are so often part...http://www.englishforums.com/English/OriginEarliestUsagePlonkerRodney-Plonker/6/hmhwv/Post.htm#646104Mon, 05 Sep 2005 21:37:16 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:646104I must be slow this morning, but I got there in the end. You are not the only one, even I did not get it straight away. As John seems to have noticed, in day to day life I am John Lawler. But when I first started posting to this group and sci.lang, I discovered that there was another John Lawler already here. After some experimentation, I settled on the Irish form of my name as a nom-de-clavier. It would be equally applicable to the other John but I got it first. I was actually born in London but my parents were both born in Ireland. Explaining the pronunciation of my surname would take quite a while. If you are interested, scan this group and sci.lang for it. One or the other contains an explanation with contributions from people whose...http://www.englishforums.com/English/ShakespearesPronunciation/2/hjpkj/Post.htm#633450Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:08:06 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:633450matthew huntbachIndeed. When English was first written, it was spelt phonetically. ... English represents how English was spoken in the 16th century. It's more complicated than that. Spelling standardised (thanks to printing) shortly *after* Shakespeare's works were published (say about the middle ... Middle English, which was *before* the Great Vowel Shift. The pronunciation of some words has changed to match the spelling... If the spelling of Shakespeare's day represented Middle English, then it had already standardised. Not completely, perhaps, but enough so that there was no longer a completely phonetical representation. Matthew Huntbachhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/ShakespearesPronunciation/hjpkj/post.htm#633436Tue, 25 Jan 2005 13:29:57 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:633436john briggsI've never heard Shakespeare being performed with original pronunciation, so ... and spelling was much closer then than it is now. Indeed. When English was first written, it was spelt phonetically. However, by Shakepeare's time "correct" spellings were just getting established. So the spelling used in English represents how English was spoken in the 16th century. It's more complicated than that. Spelling standardised (thanks to printing) shortly *after* Shakespeare's works were published (say about the middle of the seventeenth century). Most vowel sounds have changed again since Shakespeare's day, but the spelling of Shakespeare's day reflected that of Middle English, which was *before* the Great Vowel...http://www.englishforums.com/English/PronounciationMeaning/3/hhbjr/Post.htm#619657Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:36:23 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:619657cybercypherEnrico C wrote on 21 Nov 2004: One can always record one's own speech and compare it with a native speaker's rendition. On the contrary, I think one can improve a lot if others listen to him/her attentively and make him/her notice ... change the sound, even better if they can explain where their tongue exactly is when they utter a certain sound. Sure, but that's not terribly practical in most EFL classes. I do spend a bit of time on trying to teach my Taiwanese students that they have to close their lips to pronounce an (m), but most of them just pronounce words like "time" as (tain) instead of (taim). That's why I I don't think it's just an individual problem, as I noticed there are common issues for...http://www.englishforums.com/English/VowelsOfAmericanEnglish/hgzcb/post.htm#615611Mon, 06 Sep 2004 18:29:50 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:615611mxsmanicWhich do you think is better to learn? The one that doesn't require Flash. Other than that, it's up to you. There is no rigid number for the vowels in American English or any other dialect of any language. It all depends on where you draw the line. Instead of learning a fixed set of vowels by rote, look at all the vowels defined for the pronunciation you wish to adopt and then look at their relative importance. Vowels are important when they appear in many minimal pairs or sets; they are less important when they appear in few minimal pairs or sets; and they are unimportant if they don't appear in any minimal pairs or sets (unless you want to eliminate an accent). Contrasts between /i/ and /I/ are extremely important in...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/CanRemainImplementPassiveVoice/10/lkwpl/Post.htm#985077Wed, 11 Aug 2004 05:38:11 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:985077r j valentine} "Raymond S. Wise" (Email Removed) wrote in message } }> }> Since the pronunciations are identical, this might confuse some people. } But }> it should be easy enough to memorize the distinction in spelling. "Used } to" }> is used where a past tense would be used, thus the "-d." (I should note } that }> MWCD11 does show a difference in pronunciation. In addition to the }> pronunciation /jus/ for the "used" in "used to," it also has the }> pronunciation /just/.) }> } } But it's not the -d that's the issue surely, it's the unvoiced 's'. The } verb 'use' that we do actually still, ahem, use is always pronounced with a } voiced z. On this...http://www.englishforums.com/English/CanRemainImplementPassiveVoice/5/lkwpl/Post.htm#972803Mon, 09 Aug 2004 04:46:21 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:972803dr zenI don't see why. Other languages have no problem with ... English is, as we all know, already far from phonetic. Just out of curiosity...which languages are you thinking of? Well, the obvious are languages that have different literary and spoken standards, such as German, Arabic and Greek. More interestingly, how about Albanian? It has two major dialects and is written in neither, but rather in a hybrid that no one actually speaks. Okay, I cheated. These languages can all be read out without problems, even though they are not actually spoken as such. How about Dutch? Danish? Malagasy? These are in descending order of pronounceability by rule. Japanese. I'm not sure of the detail, but I know that (some?) kanji can be read...http://www.englishforums.com/English/TheSkinny/13/lwxnz/Post.htm#966001Sun, 25 Jul 2004 08:11:46 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:966001sean o'leathlobhair^ (= How?) Is this difference in the pronunciation to be expected? For ... then would he be able to predict the other's form? *Some* difference in pronunciation is to be expected. But which ones is completely unpredictable. While there is variation in the speech pool, there's no principle of natural selection. Or put another way, does the different spelling reflect a ... vowel of "mother" and we respelt to reflect our pronunciation? Sorry, I was not very clear. Let's forget the written form completely for a moment. If a phonetician interviewed the two of us, I would expect that he would find some patterns e.g. "When John says (abc), Seán says (xyz)" and he could start to guess my pronunciation from yours...http://www.englishforums.com/English/TheSkinny/13/lwxnz/Post.htm#965727Sat, 24 Jul 2004 15:16:53 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:965727john lawler^ (= How?) Americans say /ma:m/ (with a relatively long /a:/, since it's stressed and precedes a voiced nasal). "Mum" is marked as non-American, or very hurried. Is this difference in the pronunciation to be expected? For example, if a phonetician had many samples of our speech ... would pronounce it. Or if he heard one of us then would he be able to predict the other's form? *Some* difference in pronunciation is to be expected. But which ones is completely unpredictable. While there is variation in the speech pool, there's no principle of natural selection. Or put another way, does the different spelling reflect a real difference or is it just arbitrary: you kept the written vowel of "mother" and we...http://www.englishforums.com/English/TheSkinny/13/lwxnz/Post.htm#965672Sat, 24 Jul 2004 10:50:31 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:965672sean o'leathlobhair^ (= How?) Naw, that's how Somerset pronounces it. Americans say /ma:m/ (with a relatively long /a:/, since it's stressed and precedes a ... Nothing in Nature so irksome as general Discourses, especially when they turn chiefly upon Words." Joseph Addison, Spectator, #267 Is this difference in the pronunciation to be expected? For example, if a phonetician had many samples of our speech but not "mom / mum", would he be able to predict how we would pronounce it. Or if he heard one of us then would he be able to predict the other's form? Or put another way, does the different spelling reflect a real difference or is it just arbitrary: you kept the written vowel of "mother" and we respelt to reflect our...http://www.englishforums.com/English/IreWords/14/lwzpv/Post.htm#962813Mon, 19 Jul 2004 11:45:53 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:962813jonathan jordanI have come to the sudden realization that I don't pronounce all"-ire" words alike. Some have (ajr), with the same ... in the(ajr) class are "learned words" in one way or another for me, but "wire"isn't and I can't say (wVjr). I don't think I have this distinction - my "tire" and "tyre" (which of course I spell differently) are homophones as far as I can tell. However, I've seen a description of a Northern Irish accent which does seem to have a similar distinction: see http://www.students.ncl.ac.uk/w.n.maguire/SwTE.htm and click on the "phonology" link - the page uses Wells's word classes, so you're looking at PRICE. There are a couple of cases where...http://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#962487Mon, 19 Jul 2004 01:54:16 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:962487areffHow many Americans are aware that the "long 'o'"of Received Pronunciation is different from the American "long 'o'"? Some American accents have a "long 'o'" that is similar to the "long 'o'" of RP. How 'bout Philadelphia/South Jersey? There's also the question of the Esperanto "a": It can be the "ah" of "are," /A/, or the sound /a/, ... the beginning of the diphthongs "eye, /aI/, and "ow," /aU/. (Again, I don't know whether this agrees with the Fundamento.) What do you mean "/a/ ... does not exist in American English"? How would you notate the "father" vowel of Eastern New England accents?...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#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/3/lgnmb/Post.htm#953167Thu, 08 Jul 2004 08:15:25 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:953167sean o'leathlobhairSince '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); the standard AmE pronunciation of "one" rhymes with "fun". I would also use the same vowel in Juan and father. I would also expect a detectable H, if not better, at the beginning. I have heard the "one" pronunciation but regard it as ignorant and lazy. I would train my colleagues by failing to respond to "one". In my CINC AmE dialect, and so far as I know in standard AmE, "Sean" has the "caught" vowel, as indeed the alternative spelling...http://www.englishforums.com/English/SecsSoundSoundsLikeSex/2/lgnmb/Post.htm#952939Wed, 07 Jul 2004 16:19:36 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:952939areffSince '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); the standard AmE pronunciation of "one" rhymes with "fun". In my CINC AmE dialect, and so far as I know in standard AmE, "Sean" has the "caught" vowel, as indeed the alternative spelling "Shawn" indicates. In CIC dialects, of course, "John" and "Sean" rhyme. Is there any CINC AmE dialect that uses "caught" in "John"? I know that in some AmE CINC dialects /n/ is one of the set of consonants preceding which a historical...http://www.englishforums.com/English/NotAboutCienfuegos/3/lzqcw/Post.htm#949153Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:49:28 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:949153bob cunninghamWaddayamean "if". Did Praat ever lie to you before? Praat never lies, It does sometimes, but it's usually easy to tell when it's doing so. When I have any doubt about the credibility of Praat formants, I superimpose formant plots and spectrogram plots. ( http://alt-usage-english.org/superimposed.html .) If the formant routine has gone astray, it will show up that way. but fallible humans interpret Praat's true statements. I present the information just as Praat presents it to me. You are free to interpret the Praat formant plots. If you don't know how, a few minutes spent with an elementray phonetics text such as Ladefoged's A Course in Phonetics will teach you. If you don't find that some of the vowels...http://www.englishforums.com/English/GershwinSaysErstersBaloney/10/lzmnw/Post.htm#948650Wed, 30 Jun 2004 01:07:25 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:948650raymond s. wiseMy "um" rhymes with "gum", except the vowel can be extended. Ah, that's what I expected. MWCD11 has two pronunciations, " a prolonged m sound, @m." This makes me suspect that it is a word like "ahem," where there are two pronunciations, of which the one which can be represented with ordinary phonetic symbols is actually a pronunciation spelling inspired by the traditional spelling of the word. Although MWCD11 gives 1672 as the date of first attribution for "um," neither *The Century Dictionary* nor its supplement ( www.m-w.com ) have it. The supplement has an "um" which it identifies as "Same as om. " the Sanskrit mantra, and the Century itself has "hum"...http://www.englishforums.com/English/NotAboutCienfuegos/2/lzqcw/Post.htm#948610Tue, 29 Jun 2004 23:31:33 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:948610al in dallasAt the AUE site, there's a page headed "Pronunciation of newsgroup contributors' names". The URL is http://www.alt-usage-english.org/audio gallery/index.html When you ... the pronunciation that's given to the spelling "aw" in dictionaries, which is the vowel (O), the open-mid back rounded vowel. (snip) As I said in a thread named "Conjure": (snip) (you know, the British or Western American aw-like "ah". To the best of my memory, R.J. and Professor Fontana (and others) have discussed that the standard *American* "ah" sound does not seem to have a symbol assigned to it. I use '(A")' as was suggested in one such previous thread. The "British or Western American...http://www.englishforums.com/English/NotAboutCienfuegos/lzqcw/post.htm#948506Tue, 29 Jun 2004 22:07:28 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:948506bob cunninghamRestore pertinent discussion about the meaning of "aw": If "the sound of 'aw'" has any useful meaning, it must refer to the pronunciation that's given to the spelling "aw" in dictionaries, which is the vowel (O), the open-mid back rounded vowel. Wouldn't there have to be *some* rounding at the very ... to make an (l) you have to round your lips. Do you? I don't think I do. To BC: how do you deduce from the formants that there's no trace of rounding? You've probably seen by now my answer to Aaron Dinkin's question on the same point. Note that he was careful enough to recognize that there were two possible interpretations, while you allowed for only one. Let me say in addition...http://www.englishforums.com/English/NotAboutCienfuegos/lzqcw/post.htm#948014Tue, 29 Jun 2004 16:18:11 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:948014areffA certain AUE contributor has deluded himself into thinking there's a substantial difference between my vowels in "call" and "Bob" in that remark. In general I agree; I think all of your cot/caught vowels sound like normative CINC AmE "aw". In particular, he imagines that my vowel in "call" can be described as the sound of "aw". If "the sound ... the pronunciation that's given to the spelling "aw" in dictionaries, which is the vowel (O), the open-mid back rounded vowel. I think it means something more than that. It's the range of sounds you'd expect sufficiently-normatively-accented AmE CINC speakers to use in "aw" words. For many such speakers the...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/GershwinSaysErstersBaloney/16/lzmnw/Post.htm#947442Mon, 28 Jun 2004 22:15:02 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:947442michael westI 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 unexceptional to hear the "a" vowel in "tomato" treated differently, I have never hear a parallel variation for "potato", contrary to what the lyric suggests. Michael West Melbourne, Australiahttp://www.englishforums.com/English/GershwinSaysErstersBaloney/4/lzmnw/Post.htm#947295Mon, 28 Jun 2004 17:12:30 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:947295raymond s. wiseThis I don't understand. What rule do you have in mind which might, when misapplied, lead to "erster" from "oyster"? You have a dialect where, say, "bird" is (bV"Id) and it starts to get ridiculed (inaccurately represented as "boyd"). So the speakers think: Aha, (V"I)-ish sounds are bad. Replace with (V"r). So they hypercorrect. Whether they say (oIst@) or (V"Ist@), they replace it with (V"rst@). I see. I saw it differently. Using (V) for the vowel in "but," (@) for the vowel in "bird," (Oi) for the vowel in "toy": From what I had read, the sound (VI) represented a merger of (@r) and (Oi). People outside of the (VI)-dialect would mishear...http://www.englishforums.com/English/GershwinSaysErstersBaloney/lzmnw/post.htm#947208Mon, 28 Jun 2004 12:38:50 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:947208areff"Ersters" is definitely rhoticized in the Fred and Ginger version. I guess I was too tired to waffle, and I suppose it's possible that the Gershwins really did mean something ... they couldn't spell otherwise, something like "oosters" with the short oo, and the singers read it off the page rhotically. I don't think so. By that time the er/oi merger was a characteristic of the comical "Brooklynese". In reality this may have been an (V"I) merger. (V"I) isn't the same as (V"). But it's also likely that by this time New York "non-rhotic" speakers were mostly rhotic-in-fact wrt stressed /R/ in such words as "bird". Possibly many of those speakers were using...http://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/UsEnglish/7/lvwrb/Post.htm#946764Sun, 27 Jun 2004 00:28:24 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:946764robert bannisterI imagine the way the Romans said "Boadicea" was very ... fact, very close to "Boudicca" apart from the extra vowel. In classical Latin pronunciation as understood today, "C" would be a K sound, not a G sound as mentioned in ... syllables Boh-a-***-eh-a with the accent on the EH 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. Sorry I missed out the 'a' vowel when I said 'the extra vowel'. Also, at the time I wrote, I assumed the "Bou" indicated something like French "beau", rather than "boo". Rob Bannisterhttp://www.englishforums.com/English/UsEnglish/10/lvwrb/Post.htm#946493Fri, 25 Jun 2004 23:36:42 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:946493eric schwartzThe only pronunciation I've ever heard for Bodega Bay, California, is "bo DAY ga", though sometimes the first vowel drops out completely. This is also how Paul Simon sings it in "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes", which contains the lyrics And she said honey take me dancing But they ended up by sleeping In a doorway By the bodegas and the lights on Upper Broadway Wearing diamonds on the soles of their shoes -=Eric Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare. Blair Houghton.http://www.englishforums.com/English/DisprovenDisproved/9/hgnkq/Post.htm#619552Thu, 24 Jun 2004 06:27:21 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:619552odysseus(snip) I see it as a pronunciation spelling for those who pronounce the word as (drO:) and that includes rhotic AmE speakers in my experience (it may be a Midland phenomenon). MWCD11 includes (drO) as a dialectal pronunciation of "drawer" but doesn't specify which dialect(s). Norm Abram, of PBS's The New Yankee Workshop , pronounces "drawer" pretty much as you indicate, with only a hint of a second syllable (I'm not sure whether his vowel is a diphthong (drO:U)? or is just very long). I believe he's from Massachusetts; if not, New England at least. Odysseushttp://www.englishforums.com/English/ToGoWobly/lzrmv/post.htm#943758Tue, 22 Jun 2004 19:25:55 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:943758donna richouxA spelling tip: words like table and noble have what the Americans call a long vowel (tay, noh). Isn't it diphtongs? Spelling tip number two... Diphthongs has more Hs than you'd expect. Maybe you could visualize some "different thongs." /ei/ and /eu/. The second /e/ bottom up, /i/ without the dot and the /u/ like an omega bottom up - it is difficult to write Daniel Jones' phonetic signs in ascii ;-(. I have no luck in vowel discussions. All I can say is that my "long o" (as in No) sounds very different to my ears than what most British people put in such a word. I'd call theirs a diphthong, and, yes, I guess "eu" (ay-oo) describes it. ASCII IPA calls it >oU>. Probably somewhere at the...http://www.englishforums.com/English/ToGoWobly/lzrmv/post.htm#943708Tue, 22 Jun 2004 16:46:33 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:943708=?iso-8859-1?q?per_r=f8nne?=A spelling tip: words like table and noble have what the Americans call a long vowel (tay, noh). Isn't it diphtongs? /ei/ and /eu/. The second /e/ bottom up, /i/ without the dot and the /u/ like an omega bottom up - it is difficult to write Daniel Jones' phonetic signs in ascii ;-(. Per Erik Rønnehttp://www.englishforums.com/English/Pastries/8/lrnvg/Post.htm#928031Thu, 03 Jun 2004 02:13:26 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:928031raymond s. wiseI wonder which variety of English CyberCypher/Franke would consider "dumbed-down ... rabbit" or the version in which people say "Welsh rarebit." He wouldn't be able to tell; the pronunciation is identical. Three observations: (1) The question I posed about CyberCypher/Franke would be just as valid if it were only a variation in spelling which was being discussed, since the folk-etymological origins of "rarebit" can be seen in the spelling itself and a Welsh "rabbit" is still not a rabbit. (2) The Collins English Dictionary and the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary indicate that "rarebit" has a different pronunciation from "rabbit": Specifically,...http://www.englishforums.com/English/MeaningOfCorker/lbgmb/post.htm#926742Wed, 02 Jun 2004 04:36:10 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:926742areff(My Uncle Maurice (and all the rest of us) used while he was alive (the rest of us still so use) to pronounce his name ('mOris) (MORRis).) I assume you used and use to use the 'orange' (cot) vowel in "Morris" /mAr@s/ (rhyming with 'Boris' and 'Doris' and 'Horace'). Something I didn't understand about Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas : the hapless character who had come up with the whole idear of the Lufthansa heist, the chap with the toupe who had the wigs business on Queens Boulevard, who was whacked by Jimmy Conway before he had a chance to buy some danish for his wife Belle: his name was represented (in letters) in the film as "Morrie", but this was pronounced /mOri/, as if...http://www.englishforums.com/English/CilantroOrCoriander/12/lrxqn/Post.htm#924162Mon, 31 May 2004 01:49:59 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:924162skittHuh? The Spanish "a" is noticeably different from both the ... some influencing in New York (Largest City in America) too? You are correct, sir, but Mexicans do not dominate their number, unlike the Latino communities in the West and Midwest. ... have no reason to think that they bother to (misguidedly, to be sure) use 'ah' (= CIC 'aw') in 'cilantro'. There's another thing because I grew up speaking Latvian (and then German), I still remember how to pronounce all the vowels the "right" way, not the English way. ;-) For Spanish or Mexican words, all I do is revert to that pronunciation. Skitt (AUE's token Latvian)http://www.englishforums.com/English/CilantroOrCoriander/11/lrxqn/Post.htm#924147Mon, 31 May 2004 01:43:09 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:924147areffSince your experience stems from NY, I'm not surprised. In California, the "father" pronunciation is quite common (the Latino influence, you know). Huh? The Spanish "a" is noticeably different from both the AmE "father" and "cat" vowels it's more like the ... Latinos like a few million, maybe to do some influencing in New York (Largest City in America) too? You are correct, sir, but Mexicans do not dominate their number, unlike the Latino communities in the West and Midwest. The culinary usage of cilantro leaves is particularly associated with Mexican cuisine (= BrE 'cookery'). When I do my Final Assessment of Chicago, I'll be sure to mention, in the plus column, the abundance...