Some people will even get a sort of neutral accent that has all of the unusual parts removed. The Western US accent was actually formed like that, because speakers from the North, Midlands, and South, all moved to the West, and their accents

Conchita, I would have said those were the only 'standard' pronunciations in BrE, yes. The vowel shown for 'golf' would be different in AmE (the a in father ), but that shown for 'gulf' would be the same. Marvin, I misspoke. "heard

I 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

The Antonym of Sin In order to arrive at a suitable antonym for the word “sin”, one must understand the word as it is correctly used in the English language. This explanation will address the meaning of sin and its antonym in an attempt to

Length isn't phonemic in English generally. If there were two words distinguished only by vowel length, it would turn out to be a side-effect of something else, such ... taught tot, caught cot, pawed pod, sought awed sot, sawed odd sod, hawed,

Hi 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

Interesting. 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

Donna 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

Which is spoken where? And by whom? Most of the U.S. and part of Canada, except for a swath of the southern States and a few other localized regions. Do you have an example of a distinction that is shared across the entire continent? The

(Some context restored) I notice that none of the dictionaries I have access ... the vowel in 'dad' (/'had'/'lad'/'pad' etc.) and that in 'mad'/'sad'/'bad'. (Mxsmanic) The same vowel is used