Is the | ever used nowadays?
Craig Faris
My brother, who is in grade three, asked me a very interesting
question--what the | sign is for. Do any of you know what it was/is used
for, besides for piping DOS commands?
(The | character is typed by capitalizing the \ key.)
Thanks very much. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Craig Faris,
British Columbia, Canada.
Steffen Buehler
>Do any of you know what it was/is used
>for, besides for piping DOS commands?
Dear Craig,
just guessing - creating vertical lines for tables or the like?
Best regards,
Steffen
Robert Lipton
Craig Faris wrote:
>
> Hi again,
>
> My brother, who is in grade three, asked me a very interesting
> question--what the | sign is for. Do any of you know what it was/is used
> for, besides for piping DOS commands?
>
> (The | character is typed by capitalizing the \ key.)
>
> Thanks very much. Looking forward to hearing from you.
>
I hadn't even noticed. I suppose I would you it for notation: th
'or' symbol in logic or for setting magnitudes: |-4| = |+4|. Or if I
wanted a straight, vertical line.
Bob
Robert Lipton
Craig Faris wrote:
>
> Hi again,
>
> My brother, who is in grade three, asked me a very interesting
> question--what the | sign is for. Do any of you know what it was/is used
> for, besides for piping DOS commands?
>
> (The | character is typed by capitalizing the \ key.)
>
> Thanks very much. Looking forward to hearing from you.
>
I hadn't even noticed. I suppose I would you it for notation: the
Erik Meltzer
Craig Faris wrote:
> My brother, who is in grade three, asked me a very interesting
> question--what the | sign is for. Do any of you know what it was/is used
> for, besides for piping DOS commands?
Piping Unix commands ;-) ...sorry, and I won't go into
when and from where DOS adopted piping. Apart from the
logical OR already mentioned in this thread, some
programming languages use two of them for string
concatenation: 'a' || 'bc' would give 'abc'.
And don't forget the :-| (non-)smiley...
Yours,
Erik.
--
May we live long and die out: http://www.vhemt.org/
Mögen wir lange leben und aussterben: http://www.vhemt.de/
-- demnächst in Ihrem Browser!
I don't reply? Check message headers for hints.
Peter Hartikka
> Hi again,
>
> My brother, who is in grade three, asked me a very interesting
> question--what the | sign is for. Do any of you know what it was/is used
> for, besides for piping DOS commands?
Not much... in fact it seems to have been removed from some computer
keyboards, at least in South Africa.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/nation-world/html98/coat22_20000522.html
tmd39
you know what it was/is used for, besides for piping DOS
commands?
1) I think I see it in written instructions for performing steps
in software use, to connect the steps, e.g.
Tools|Options|View|All.
2) Before the computer, I'm guessing it was used (as it still
can be, obviously) to draw a vertical line. I hope most
keyboard-makers don't remove it.
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
Richard Fontana
> ..very interesting question--what the | sign is for. Do any of
> you know what it was/is used for, besides for piping DOS
> commands?
I didn't know you could pipe DOS commands. The pipe | is closely
associated with Unix.
> **********************
> 1) I think I see it in written instructions for performing steps
> in software use, to connect the steps, e.g.
> Tools|Options|View|All.
>
> 2) Before the computer, I'm guessing it was used (as it still
> can be, obviously) to draw a vertical line. I hope most
> keyboard-makers don't remove it.
I think it may not have even been included on standard US typewriter
keyboards years ago, but I'm not sure about this.
RF
Joseph C Fineman
>I suppose I would you it for notation: the 'or' symbol in logic or
>for setting magnitudes: |-4| = |+4|.
In mathematics, besides the above use as a fence to mean absolute
value, a spaced vertical bar can mean "is a divisor of": 3 | 6.
--- Joe Fineman j...@world.std.com
||: Wave functions are the dreams that stuff is made on. :||
PANG
DRAE, but not in my Simon & Schuster Engl-Sp -&-Sp-Engl):
Apartamiento: (DRAE, ||2.): Apartamento.
Piso: (DRAE, ||3.): Pavimento natural o artificial de las
habitaciones;
Piso: (DRAE ||4.): Conjunto de habitaciones que constituyen
vivienda independiente en una casa de varios altos.
PANG San Antonio, Texas (occasional visitor)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
tmd39 wrote:
>
> ..very interesting question--what the | sign is for. Do any of
> you know what it was/is used for, besides for piping DOS
> commands?
> **********************
> 1) I think I see it in written instructions for performing steps
> in software use, to connect the steps, e.g.
> Tools|Options|View|All.
>
> 2) Before the computer, I'm guessing it was used (as it still
> can be, obviously) to draw a vertical line. I hope most
> keyboard-makers don't remove it.
>
Tootsie
Richard Fontana wrote in message ...
>On Mon, 22 May 2000, tmd39 wrote:
>> ..very interesting question--what the | sign is for. Do any of
>> you know what it was/is used for, besides for piping DOS
>> commands?
>
>associated with Unix.
>
>> 1) I think I see it in written instructions for performing steps
>> in software use, to connect the steps, e.g.
>> Tools|Options|View|All.
>>
>> 2) Before the computer, I'm guessing it was used (as it still
>> can be, obviously) to draw a vertical line. I hope most
>> keyboard-makers don't remove it.
>
>keyboards years ago, but I'm not sure about this.
I don't think so either. The first time I remember seeing the "|" was
about 15 years ago, maybe less. I used it for tables, line-downs,
drawings, and just plain fun things. I can't reproduce any of that here
in email. Things just don't line up or stay lined up.
As for the use of the straight vertical line, I frequently use it as
mentioned in #1 above. (Go to Tools | Newsgroups | alt.usage.english.)
Note that I put spaces on either side. I just like the way that looks.
Tootsie
Mike Barnes
>On Mon, 22 May 2000, tmd39 wrote:
>
>> ..very interesting question--what the | sign is for. Do any of
>> you know what it was/is used for, besides for piping DOS
>> commands?
>
>I didn't know you could pipe DOS commands. The pipe | is closely
>associated with Unix.
You can, but only after a fashion. I don't think anyone used to Unix
pipes would be impressed.
--
Mike Barnes
RJ Valentine
[RF] On Mon, 22 May 2000, tmd39 wrote:
>> ..very interesting question--what the | sign is for. Do any of
>> you know what it was/is used for, besides for piping DOS
>> commands?
[RF] I didn't know you could pipe DOS commands. The pipe | is closely
[RF] associated with Unix.
Cmaan, get serious.
Where would DOS be without 'echo.|time|find "Current"'?
Unless you meant Big Blue's DOS, where you had to do something like:
// DD something something I forget
(but even there you could do it).
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
> My brother, who is in grade three, asked me a very interesting
> question--what the | sign is for. Do any of you know what it was/is
> used for, besides for piping DOS commands?
>
> (The | character is typed by capitalizing the \ key.)
In elegant typography, the vertical line is used to indicate the ends of
verse lines printed continuously, i.e., not on separate lines.
Nowadays, the pedestrian-looking slash (virgule) is used instead.
Example:
Impossible! A dream, no more,
A sweet and cruel dream,
A cursèd dream dreamt nightly.
A dream so yearned and yet despised
Because the misery it brings
When I wake up.
Impossible! A dream, no more, | A sweet and cruel dream, | A cursèd
dream dreamt nightly. | A dream so yearned and yet despised | Because
the misery it brings | When I wake up.
--
Reinhold (Rey) Aman, Editor
Richard Fontana
> In alt.usage.english Richard Fontana <re...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
> [RF] On Mon, 22 May 2000, tmd39 wrote:
>
> >> ..very interesting question--what the | sign is for. Do any of
> >> you know what it was/is used for, besides for piping DOS
> >> commands?
>
> [RF] I didn't know you could pipe DOS commands. The pipe | is closely
> [RF] associated with Unix.
>
> Cmaan, get serious.
>
> Where would DOS be without 'echo.|time|find "Current"'?
>
> Unless you meant Big Blue's DOS, where you had to do something like:
>
> // DD something something I forget
>
> (but even there you could do it).
So let's change the subject. How do people pronounce the vowel in "DOS"?
Like the vowel in "tot", "taught", or both? And was the 1960s IBM DOS
pronounced differently? M-W has an entry for "DOS" but gives no
pronunciation.
I believe I've heard both pronunciations, but some of these
may be by people for whom "tot" and "taught" are merged.
I would usually use the "tot" vowel, as I always would when saying
"MS-DOS". This makes it different from ordinary monosyllablic words of the
written form -oss, including "doss", which always take the "taught" vowel
in my idiolect (exception: "gross", which takes the "tote" vowel). Most
multisyllablic words with stressed "oss" that are not easily connectable
to a monosyllablic -oss word have the "tot" vowel. "Los" in "Los Angeles"
takes the taught vowel, as does "Boston".
Is that David MacMurray walking this way with a rifle?
The Jargon File does not helpfully address the normal pronunciation issue,
but it does note the following:
"Some people like to pronounce DOS like "dose", as in "I don't work on
dose, man!", or to compare it to a dose of brain-damaging drugs (a slogan
button in wide circulation among hackers exhorts: "MS-DOS: Just say
No!")."
RF
Benjamin Krefetz
> So let's change the subject. How do people pronounce the vowel in "DOS"?
> Like the vowel in "tot", "taught", or both? And was the 1960s IBM DOS
> pronounced differently? M-W has an entry for "DOS" but gives no
> pronunciation.
> I believe I've heard both pronunciations, but some of these
> may be by people for whom "tot" and "taught" are merged.
> I would usually use the "tot" vowel, as I always would when saying
> "MS-DOS". This makes it different from ordinary monosyllablic words of the
> written form -oss, including "doss", which always take the "taught" vowel
> in my idiolect (exception: "gross", which takes the "tote" vowel). Most
> multisyllablic words with stressed "oss" that are not easily connectable
> to a monosyllablic -oss word have the "tot" vowel. "Los" in "Los Angeles"
> takes the taught vowel, as does "Boston".
I merge the two vowels and not surprisingly, I use the same vowel for "DOS".
On the other hand, my mother, having been raised in New Jersey, distinguishes
the two (though more along an /a/ vs. /A/ split than an /a/ vs. /O/ split), and
she uses the same vowel as in "tot".
Ben
Richard Fontana
Ah. Now /a/ vs. /A/ is basically how I've come to view the
tot/taught distinction in my speech and the speech I think I hear a lot of
people using. The tot vowel is not quite as fronted as the standard /a/,
the /A/ has a bit of lip-rounding in very careful speech. I suppose this
could be more regionally restricted than I am inclined to think it is.
RF
Charles Riggs
wrote:
>Robert Lipton <bobl...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
>>I suppose I would you it for notation: the 'or' symbol in logic or
>>for setting magnitudes: |-4| = |+4|.
>
>In mathematics, besides the above use as a fence to mean absolute
>value, a spaced vertical bar can mean "is a divisor of": 3 | 6.
I've always seen " / ", not (my present keyboard seems unable to make
the vertical bar) used that way.
Charles Riggs
Aaron J. Dinkin
chr...@gofree.indigo.ie wrote:
I've never seen the diagonal slash used that way, only the vertical bar. In
fact, if I saw "3 / 6", I'd take it to mean "three divided by six" (i.e.,
one half), not "three divides six". The latter is "3 | 6".
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Sven Peter Johan Haglund
wrote the following on Mon, 22 May 2000 23:40:04 -0400:
>
>>On Mon, 22 May 2000, tmd39 wrote:
>>> ..very interesting question--what the | sign is for. Do any of
>>> you know what it was/is used for, besides for piping DOS
>>> commands?
>
> I used it for tables, line-downs,
>drawings, and just plain fun things. I can't reproduce any of that here
>in email. Things just don't line up or stay lined up.
Use a fixed-width font (such as Courier or Courier New). With a
proportional font things won't line up because "|" takes up less
space than, say, "$".
Steffen Buehler
>"|" takes up less space than, say, "$".
I think that's what they call inflation.
SCNR,
Steffen
Sven Peter Johan Haglund
wrote the following on 23 May 2000 05:37:21 GMT:
>In alt.usage.english Richard Fontana <re...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
>[RF] On Mon, 22 May 2000, tmd39 wrote:
>
>>> ..very interesting question--what the | sign is for. Do any of
>>> you know what it was/is used for, besides for piping DOS
>>> commands?
>
>[RF] I didn't know you could pipe DOS commands. The pipe | is closely
>[RF] associated with Unix.
>
>Cmaan, get serious.
>
>Where would DOS be without 'echo.|time|find "Current"'?
>
>Unless you meant Big Blue's DOS, where you had to do something like:
>
>// DD something something I forget
>
>(but even there you could do it).
You can't expect as intelligent answers from DOS as you can from UNIX
though.
# man: Why did you get a divorce?
man:: Too many arguments.
#
Richard Fontana
> On Mon, 22 May 2000 22:05:49 GMT, j...@world.std.com (Joseph C Fineman)
> wrote:
>
> >Robert Lipton <bobl...@earthlink.net> writes:
> >
> >>I suppose I would you it for notation: the 'or' symbol in logic or
> >>for setting magnitudes: |-4| = |+4|.
> >
> >In mathematics, besides the above use as a fence to mean absolute
> >value, a spaced vertical bar can mean "is a divisor of": 3 | 6.
>
> I've always seen " / ", not (my present keyboard seems unable to make
> the vertical bar) used that way.
3 / 6 means three divided by six. 3 | 6 is three divides six.
RF
Sven Peter Johan Haglund
wrote the following on Tue, 23 May 2000 08:13:20 -0700:
>my present keyboard seems unable to make the vertical bar
Unless it's broken, you certainly can use it to type the vertical bar.
Assuming you are a Windows user, you can use the 'Windows Character
Map' to find out which keys to press when you want to type a character
that isn't present on your keyboard. The Character Map can be found on
the Start Menu, under 'Programs/Accessories/System Tools'. You can
also launch it by choosing 'Run' from the Start Menu, typing 'charmap'
in the textbox entitled 'Open' and clicking 'OK', or by typing
'charmap' in an MS-DOS window and hitting the enter key.
If these methods fail, you probably don't have the Character Map
installed on your system (I don't remember if it's installed by
default when one installs Windows). To install it simply go to the
Control Panel, choose 'Add/Remove Programs', 'Windows Setup' and
locate the Character Map among the options there.
Pat Meadows
<kre...@fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>I merge the two vowels and not surprisingly, I use the same vowel for "DOS".
>On the other hand, my mother, having been raised in New Jersey, distinguishes
>the two (though more along an /a/ vs. /A/ split than an /a/ vs. /O/ split), and
>she uses the same vowel as in "tot".
>
I was raised (mostly) in New York, but lived in New
Jersey a long time. I differentiate the two vowels (quite
clearly), and use the "tot" pronunciation for DOS.
Pat
Richard Fontana
Do you round your lips when you say "taught" in normally-pacedspeech?
RF
Earle Jones
> Apparently Charles Riggs <chr...@gofree.indigo.ie>
> wrote the following on Tue, 23 May 2000 08:13:20 -0700:
>
> >my present keyboard seems unable to make the vertical bar
>
> Unless it's broken, you certainly can use it to type the vertical bar.
*
On Mac keyboards, the vertical bar is the uppercase backslash.
earle
*
David McMurray
[...]
> So let's change the subject. How do people pronounce the vowel in "DOS"?
> Like the vowel in "tot", "taught", or both?
Yes. But you knew that.
[...]
> Is that David MacMurray walking this way with a rifle?
If it is, it's quite a coincidence.
[...]
--
David
R J Valentine
] On 23 May 2000, RJ Valentine wrote:
...
]> Where would DOS be without 'echo.|time|find "Current"'?
]>
]> Unless you meant Big Blue's DOS, where you had to do something like:
]>
]> // DD something something I forget
]>
]> (but even there you could do it).
]
] So let's change the subject. How do people pronounce the vowel in "DOS"?
] Like the vowel in "tot", "taught", or both? And was the 1960s IBM DOS
] pronounced differently? M-W has an entry for "DOS" but gives no
] pronunciation.
What's the vowel in "tot"? Is it the American "short O" that sounds like
"ah" as in the Latin pronunciation of "amen" or is it the unAmerican
"short O" that isn't as long or as inclined to be diphthongized as the
vowel sound(s) in "taught", and is half way to the American pronunciation
of "tut"?
] I believe I've heard both pronunciations, but some of these
] may be by people for whom "tot" and "taught" are merged.
] I would usually use the "tot" vowel, as I always would when saying
] "MS-DOS". This makes it different from ordinary monosyllablic words of the
] written form -oss, including "doss", which always take the "taught" vowel
] in my idiolect (exception: "gross", which takes the "tote" vowel). Most
] multisyllablic words with stressed "oss" that are not easily connectable
] to a monosyllablic -oss word have the "tot" vowel. "Los" in "Los Angeles"
] takes the taught vowel, as does "Boston".
]
] Is that David MacMurray walking this way with a rifle?
]
] The Jargon File does not helpfully address the normal pronunciation issue,
] but it does note the following:
] "Some people like to pronounce DOS like "dose", as in "I don't work on
] dose, man!", or to compare it to a dose of brain-damaging drugs (a slogan
] button in wide circulation among hackers exhorts: "MS-DOS: Just say
] No!")."
Myself, I've never been able to bring myself to pronounce it as a word.
When I was coming up, IBM's DOS and its successor OS (-360) were so
unbelievably crude compared to what we had on other computers like
Burroughs and CDC (and nowhere near as much fun as the plugboard computers
and the new PDP-8's) that they never got the respect implied by
pronouncing it as a word (which would have been hard with OS anyway, with
which it would have been contrasted to a certain extent).
But there was a possibly related question, pronunciation-wise, with the
ISDOS Project at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, which as I
recall Professor Teichroew pronounced like "ISS-dose", but a lot of people
pronounced as "IZ-dahss". (It was something like the Information System
Design and Optimization System Project (the folks who brought us PSL and
PSA), but that was back when designers were expected to discover the
requirements first, then design something to solve the problem, then make
sure it worked, and only then release it to the users, long before the
concept of "beta" testing, where the users were expected to find the
problems and report them in time to make the next "beta" release.) A
vaguely similar split may have happened with the pronunciation of the
numbers in IBM's 7090's and 7094's. I get the impression from Ms. Donovan
that she and her pals pronounced it like "seven zero nine four" or maybe
"seven oh nine four", but in our neck of the woods they were always
"seventy ninety" and "seventy ninety-four". 1401 may have been
universally "fourteen oh one", though. There's probably somebody
wandering around the IRS pronouncing the tax form as "one oh four oh".
As with .GIF, the intention of the originator doesn't necessarily become
universal.
On the other hand, I'm inclined to pronounce "vi" like "vie", and I just
live with the smirks of my kids who pronounce it as letters. I think
there's a rule somewhere that if you want it pronounced as letters it has
to be written in upper case, preferably with periods, or at the very least
be otherwise unpronounceable.
Oh, yeah, and I don't get what's with the prudes who pronounce SCSI as
"scuzzy", when the true pronunciation ought to be obvious.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@clark.net>
:q (A vi user trying to get out of emacs)
Aaron J. Dinkin
<r...@clark.net> wrote:
> Richard Fontana <re...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
> ] So let's change the subject. How do people pronounce the vowel in "DOS"?
> ] Like the vowel in "tot", "taught", or both? And was the 1960s IBM DOS
> ] pronounced differently? M-W has an entry for "DOS" but gives no
> ] pronunciation.
>
> What's the vowel in "tot"? Is it the American "short O" that sounds like
> "ah" as in the Latin pronunciation of "amen" or is it the unAmerican
> "short O" that isn't as long or as inclined to be diphthongized as the
> vowel sound(s) in "taught", and is half way to the American pronunciation
> of "tut"?
Now really, that's not a fair question. The vowel in "tot" is "short o",
and how that "short o" is realized depends on your dialect - it could be
[a] (as in Latin "amen"), [A], [A.], or even conceivably [O]. "Short o"
isn't the same as "ah" in all American dialects, and it's like Latin [a] in
even fewer. Richard's question is just, is the vowel in "DOS" "short o" or
"aw"?
R J Valentine
] In article <bfBW4.103$Wc2....@iad-read.news.verio.net>, R J Valentine
And Bob Cunningham's answer would be "What's the difference? If you have
a phonetics question use a phonetics tool like ASCII IPA to pose it."
But with all due respect you're correct as usual in what you say.
If you want fair, that's two windows down.
Aaron J. Dinkin
<r...@clark.net> wrote:
> Aaron J. Dinkin <din...@fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
> ] In article <bfBW4.103$Wc2....@iad-read.news.verio.net>, R J Valentine
> ] <r...@clark.net> wrote:
> ]
> ]> Richard Fontana <re...@columbia.edu> wrote:
> ]>
> ]> ] So let's change the subject. How do people pronounce the vowel in "DOS"?
> ]> ] Like the vowel in "tot", "taught", or both? And was the 1960s IBM DOS
> ]> ] pronounced differently? M-W has an entry for "DOS" but gives no
> ]> ] pronunciation.
> ]>
> ]> What's the vowel in "tot"? Is it the American "short O" that sounds like
> ]> "ah" as in the Latin pronunciation of "amen" or is it the unAmerican
> ]> "short O" that isn't as long or as inclined to be diphthongized as the
> ]> vowel sound(s) in "taught", and is half way to the American pronunciation
> ]> of "tut"?
> ]
> ] Now really, that's not a fair question. The vowel in "tot" is "short o",
> ] and how that "short o" is realized depends on your dialect - it could be
> ] [a] (as in Latin "amen"), [A], [A.], or even conceivably [O]. "Short o"
> ] isn't the same as "ah" in all American dialects, and it's like Latin [a] in
> ] even fewer. Richard's question is just, is the vowel in "DOS" "short o" or
> ] "aw"?
>
> And Bob Cunningham's answer would be "What's the difference? If you have
> a phonetics question use a phonetics tool like ASCII IPA to pose it."
And my answer to that would be, this is very much not a phonetics question.
It's more of a phonemics question, or perhaps a phonemic distribution
question. Learning that some people pronounce "DOS" with [A] and some with
[A.] would not give Richard the information he wants; learning that (say)
everyone pronounces it with "short o", i.e., the same vowel as is in "tot",
would.
Andrew Pearson
tmd39 <tmd39N...@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:09ec05b9...@usw-ex0102-013.remarq.com...
> ..very interesting question--what the | sign is for. Do any of
> you know what it was/is used for, besides for piping DOS
> commands?
> 1) I think I see it in written instructions for performing steps
> in software use, to connect the steps, e.g.
> Tools|Options|View|All.
>
> 2) Before the computer, I'm guessing it was used (as it still
> can be, obviously) to draw a vertical line. I hope most
> keyboard-makers don't remove it.
Funnily enough "|" is used increasingly nowadays... in web pages. I
bet you've seen several instances today. You can see one at
www.deja.com - inbetween "Login" and "Register". It's just the thing
for separating options, and is often used in "menu bars" across the
top of web pages.
--
Andrew Pearson
"exactly what the web needs less of".
Richard Fontana
> Richard Fontana <re...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > So let's change the subject. How do people pronounce the vowel in "DOS"?
> > Like the vowel in "tot", "taught", or both?
>
> Yes. But you knew that.
>
> [...]
>
> > Is that David MacMurray walking this way with a rifle?
>
> If it is, it's quite a coincidence.
Oops. I knew I'd get the 'a' wrong.
RF
Richard Fontana
> Richard Fontana <re...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
> ] So let's change the subject. How do people pronounce the vowel in "DOS"?
> ] Like the vowel in "tot", "taught", or both? And was the 1960s IBM DOS
> ] pronounced differently? M-W has an entry for "DOS" but gives no
> ] pronunciation.
>
> What's the vowel in "tot"? Is it the American "short O" that sounds like
> "ah" as in the Latin pronunciation of "amen" or is it the unAmerican
> "short O" that isn't as long or as inclined to be diphthongized as the
> vowel sound(s) in "taught", and is half way to the American pronunciation
> of "tut"?
This is the core of the controversy. You and I think alike. We think
that the "Latin a" is the same as American "short o". But the ASCII IPA
scheme, as conventionally used, suggests that "Latin a" is /a/ and
American "short o" is /A/. Now all I can say is that when I learned Latin
I was taught to pronounce the Latin a like the "a of father", which for me
is just a lengthened version of "short o". When I hear Italian spoken,
the vowel used for written 'a' seems nearly identical to the vowel I use
in "father" (long) and "tot" (short). The recorded [a] on one of Bob
Cunningham's ASCII IPA pages is somewhat different from the "Latin a"/
"American short o" that I know. It's moving closer to what I think of as
"American short a", the vowel in "cat". The recorded [A] (the official
professional recordings) on Bob's page doesn't sound to me like the
'a' of "father" or the 'o' of "pot". It sounds awfully close to the
vowel I use in "taught", provided there's little or no rounding of the
lips.
I think there is an important issue here that has never adequately been
addressed. Why were we taught to pronounce Latin (or Romance language)
'a' with the "a as in 'father'", if this is supposedly such a different
vowel?
My sense that this [A] is the normal American "taught" vowel may
be, well, sensible. The only people in the US who aren't going to use
[A] in "taught" are:
(1) People who use [A.], but this is either going to sound very close to
[A] or else get diphthongized and sound like the mark of a regional accent
(2) People who use [O], e.g. some New Yorkers, but this is a sign of a
strong regional accent
(3) People who, as I perceive it, use the "tot" vowel for "taught",
e.g. some people from the western US. But the systematic use of my
"tot" vowel for words of the "taught" class is, for me, another sign of a
local or regional American accent. I think it is part of what many
Eastern Americans think of as "[western] twang".
I'm going to assume that educated speakers throughout the Northeast
(except those with a marked regional accent) and educated speakers
throughout the Midwest (including those with a marked regional accent),
and maybe people in the South too, regularly use my "taught" vowel in
"taught". From Bob Cunningham's own recordings it's clear that some
Western Americans also use this "taught" vowel.
Oh, I forgot your question. By the vowel in "tot" I mean the "amen"
vowel and not the near-"tut" vowel. By the latter I assume you mean the
short vowel RP speakers would use in "tot". I think your remarks explain
why we regard /A./ as "unAmerican": British speakers use it as a short
vowel and seem not to diphthongize it. I think many Americans use [A.]
but often it will be as a long, and perhaps diphthongized, vowel.
[snipped interesting historical discussion, etc.]
RF
R J Valentine
[Excellent stuff about pronunciation snipped, but the comment below
applies to pretty much all of it.]
] Oh, I forgot your question. By the vowel in "tot" I mean the "amen"
] vowel and not the near-"tut" vowel. By the latter I assume you mean the
] short vowel RP speakers would use in "tot".
Exactly.
R J Valentine
] In article <%nCW4.124$Wc2....@iad-read.news.verio.net>, R J Valentine
] <r...@clark.net> wrote:
]
]> Aaron J. Dinkin <din...@fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
...
]> ] even fewer. Richard's question is just, is the vowel in "DOS" "short o" or
]> ] "aw"?
]>
]> And Bob Cunningham's answer would be "What's the difference? If you have
]> a phonetics question use a phonetics tool like ASCII IPA to pose it."
]
] And my answer to that would be, this is very much not a phonetics question.
] It's more of a phonemics question, or perhaps a phonemic distribution
] question. Learning that some people pronounce "DOS" with [A] and some with
] [A.] would not give Richard the information he wants; learning that (say)
] everyone pronounces it with "short o", i.e., the same vowel as is in "tot",
] would.
Okay, I didn't think that was what Prof. Fontana was shooting for, but
this is a good point, nicely articulated; and I don't particularly
disagree with it (except to mention again that I think that Bob Cunningham
pronounces his "short o" and his "aw" just about the same, with the
difference measured in milliseconds and little else, but that he is fully
aware that other people pronounce them like differently).
Aaron J. Dinkin
<Pine.GSO.4.10.100052...@konichiwa.cc.columbia.edu>,
Richard Fontana <re...@columbia.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, 23 May 2000, R J Valentine wrote:
>
> > Richard Fontana <re...@columbia.edu> wrote:
> >
> > ] So let's change the subject. How do people pronounce the vowel in "DOS"?
> > ] Like the vowel in "tot", "taught", or both? And was the 1960s IBM DOS
> > ] pronounced differently? M-W has an entry for "DOS" but gives no
> > ] pronunciation.
> >
> > What's the vowel in "tot"? Is it the American "short O" that sounds like
> > "ah" as in the Latin pronunciation of "amen" or is it the unAmerican
> > "short O" that isn't as long or as inclined to be diphthongized as the
> > vowel sound(s) in "taught", and is half way to the American pronunciation
> > of "tut"?
>
> This is the core of the controversy.
How so? With all due respect (an expression I use sincerely, I hastily add
to prevent objection), I don't see how R J's question about phonetics is
relevant at all to the question about the pronunciation of "DOS" you pose
above. People could pronounce "tot" with [O] and "taught" with [aU] and,
provided they were consistent in that, it would make no difference to their
answer to your question.
> You and I think alike. We think that the "Latin a" is the same as American
> "short o". But the ASCII IPA scheme, as conventionally used, suggests that
> "Latin a" is /a/ and American "short o" is /A/.
<snip>
> I think there is an important issue here that has never adequately been
> addressed. Why were we taught to pronounce Latin (or Romance language)
> 'a' with the "a as in 'father'", if this is supposedly such a different
> vowel?
I think "such a different vowel" is probably overstating the difference.
The "a as in 'father'", or what I call English "ah", is in all dialects
probably closer to [a] than any other phoneme, with the possible exception
of "short a". It's usually difficult for English speakers to distinguish
between [A] and [a] in contexts where they don't contrast (i.e., virtually
everywhere) - perhaps because one dialect's [a] is often equivalent to
another dialect's [A] - whereas [&] is immediately identifiable as
different. Thus "ah" is at least any dialect's best approximation to "Latin
a".
(The above paragraph should not be mistaken for lecturing, and there is no
intended implication that I know what I'm talking about. I'm merely
musing.)
> My sense that this [A] is the normal American "taught" vowel may
> be, well, sensible. The only people in the US who aren't going to use
> [A] in "taught" are:
> (1) People who use [A.], but this is either going to sound very close to
> [A] or else get diphthongized and sound like the mark of a regional accent
Hmm... from a class I took on the dialects of the English language, I
understand that [A.] is actually the more common American "taught" vowel,
though [A] is found also.
Aaron J. Dinkin
<r...@clark.net> wrote:
Yes, the same is true of me. Therefore Bob and I would be the wrong people
to answer that question, because we can legitimately say that we don't know
whether "DOS" is pronounced with "short o" or "aw". In fact, I had no idea
that "loss", "toss", and so on were pronounced with "aw", which is the fact
that motivated Richard's question. Is this true in all dialects, or only in
some?
Sven Peter Johan Haglund
wrote the following on Tue, 23 May 2000 19:47:19 GMT:
>Oh, yeah, and I don't get what's with the prudes who pronounce SCSI as
>"scuzzy", when the true pronunciation ought to be obvious.
Perhaps the true pronunciation isn't obvious to those who aren't old
enough to remember SASI.
Richard Fontana
> Hmm... from a class I took on the dialects of the English language, I
> understand that [A.] is actually the more common American "taught" vowel,
> though [A] is found also.
Aargh! Now you tell me. So perhaps I was right all along.
I would say that my "taught" vowel is [A.] migrating towards [A], with the
migration (at this point, though I'm not sure what the situation was 25
years ago) being nearly complete.
There's still the matter of the "tot" vowel, however.
RF
Charles Riggs
Dinkin) wrote:
>In article <lf7lis80leq58ea1s...@4ax.com>,
>chr...@gofree.indigo.ie wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 22 May 2000 22:05:49 GMT, j...@world.std.com (Joseph C Fineman)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >Robert Lipton <bobl...@earthlink.net> writes:
>> >
>> >>I suppose I would you it for notation: the 'or' symbol in logic or
>> >>for setting magnitudes: |-4| = |+4|.
>> >
>> >In mathematics, besides the above use as a fence to mean absolute
>> >value, a spaced vertical bar can mean "is a divisor of": 3 | 6.
>>
>> I've always seen " / ", not (my present keyboard seems unable to make
>> the vertical bar) used that way.
>
>I've never seen the diagonal slash used that way, only the vertical bar. In
>fact, if I saw "3 / 6", I'd take it to mean "three divided by six" (i.e.,
>one half), not "three divides six". The latter is "3 | 6".
I wasn't doing too well yesterday. I misread another one. I'll try to
read more carefully.
Charles Riggs
Charles Riggs
<kerb...@dataphone.se> wrote:
>Apparently Charles Riggs <chr...@gofree.indigo.ie>
>wrote the following on Tue, 23 May 2000 08:13:20 -0700:
>
>>my present keyboard seems unable to make the vertical bar
>
>Unless it's broken, you certainly can use it to type the vertical bar.
I meant it doesn't show up on any of the keys. In the old DOS days, my
keyboard directly supported the symbol.
>Assuming you are a Windows user, you can use the 'Windows Character
>Map' to find out which keys to press when you want to type a character
>that isn't present on your keyboard.
Yes, I'm aware of that. Oddly enough, for this case, when I select and
copy the vertical bar it gives me "˝". Anyway, the only use I'd have
for the symbol would be when using DOS, so the Windows Character Map
wouldn't be of help.
Charles Riggs
Charles Riggs
wrote:
>In article <8likiss3brt58k9aa...@utter.nonsen.se>, Sven
>Peter Johan Haglund <kerb...@dataphone.se> wrote:
>
>> Apparently Charles Riggs <chr...@gofree.indigo.ie>
>> wrote the following on Tue, 23 May 2000 08:13:20 -0700:
>>
>> >my present keyboard seems unable to make the vertical bar
>>
>> Unless it's broken, you certainly can use it to type the vertical bar.
>
>*
>On Mac keyboards, the vertical bar is the uppercase backslash.
A Mac has a keyboard? Is it on the underside of the mouse?
Charles Riggs
Sven Peter Johan Haglund
wrote the following on Wed, 24 May 2000 11:42:37 -0700:
>On Tue, 23 May 2000 11:12:50 +0200, Sven Peter Johan Haglund
><kerb...@dataphone.se> wrote:
>
>>Apparently Charles Riggs <chr...@gofree.indigo.ie>
>>wrote the following on Tue, 23 May 2000 08:13:20 -0700:
>>
>>>my present keyboard seems unable to make the vertical bar
>>
>>Unless it's broken, you certainly can use it to type the vertical bar.
>
>I meant it doesn't show up on any of the keys. In the old DOS days, my
>keyboard directly supported the symbol.
>
>>Assuming you are a Windows user, you can use the 'Windows Character
>>Map' to find out which keys to press when you want to type a character
>>that isn't present on your keyboard.
>
>Yes, I'm aware of that. Oddly enough, for this case, when I select and
>copy the vertical bar it gives me "½".
I might be able to explain that phenomenon. By default, the Character
Map is set to display the characters producable by the 'Symbol' font,
and that font gives me a | when I press the ½ key. The Character Map
has a drop down menu from which you can select a more appropriate
font, such as Courier New or whichever font you're normally using when
writing text.
>Anyway, the only use I'd have
>for the symbol would be when using DOS, so the Windows Character Map
>wouldn't be of help.
It's 'Alt-124' if your copy of DOS is using codepage 850, which it
should if you have an English version of DOS and a not too exotic
keyboard. Hold down the Alt key and type '124' with the numerical
keypad (it won't work with the 'normal' 1, 2 and 4 keys), this method
might also work in Windows, again depending a little on how your
system is configured.
Ray Heindl
<ejones12-EA8736...@news.concentric.net>:
>In article <8likiss3brt58k9aa...@utter.nonsen.se>,
>Sven Peter Johan Haglund <kerb...@dataphone.se> wrote:
>
>> Apparently Charles Riggs <chr...@gofree.indigo.ie>
>> wrote the following on Tue, 23 May 2000 08:13:20 -0700:
>>
>> >my present keyboard seems unable to make the vertical bar
>>
>> Unless it's broken, you certainly can use it to type the vertical
>> bar.
>
>*
>On Mac keyboards, the vertical bar is the uppercase backslash.
I never realized that printers' typecases contained the '|' character.
Those old-time printers sure were ahead of their times. Or did you
mean "shift backslash"?
--
Ray Heindl
Aaron J. Dinkin
Johan Haglund <phag...@post.netlink.se> wrote:
> Apparently Charles Riggs <chr...@gofree.indigo.ie>
> wrote the following on Wed, 24 May 2000 11:42:37 -0700:
>
> >On Tue, 23 May 2000 11:12:50 +0200, Sven Peter Johan Haglund
> ><kerb...@dataphone.se> wrote:
> >
> >>Assuming you are a Windows user, you can use the 'Windows Character
> >>Map' to find out which keys to press when you want to type a character
> >>that isn't present on your keyboard.
> >
> >Yes, I'm aware of that. Oddly enough, for this case, when I select and
> >copy the vertical bar it gives me "½".
>
> I might be able to explain that phenomenon. By default, the Character
> Map is set to display the characters producable by the 'Symbol' font,
> and that font gives me a | when I press the ½ key.
The symbol I see between "the" and "key" is a capital Pi. Do you have a key
on your keyboard for a capital Pi, or does it appear differently on my
screen than on yours?
Aaron J. Dinkin
Richard Fontana <re...@columbia.edu> wrote:
> I would say that my "taught" vowel is [A.] migrating towards [A], with the
> migration (at this point, though I'm not sure what the situation was 25
> years ago) being nearly complete.
My "taught" vowel is similar to yours, but I think with the migration less
complete. There's noticeable rounding on it, although not so much as there
is in a pure-RP "short o".
My "tot" is the same as "taught".
Skitt
Aaron J. Dinkin <din...@fas.harvard.edu> wrote in message
news:dinkin-ya0231800...@news.fas.harvard.edu...
>
> My "tot" is the same as "taught".
I hope you never have to explain that "A tot can be taught."
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://i.am/skitt/
Some mornings it's just not worth chewing through
the leather straps. -- Emo Phillips
Benjamin Krefetz
> Hmm... from a class I took on the dialects of the English language, I
> understand that [A.] is actually the more common American "taught" vowel,
> though [A] is found also.
I find that very interesting considering 1) he never said that when I took the
class, and 2) you have yet to show me an American who does use that vowel.
Ben
Sven Peter Johan Haglund
wrote the following on Wed, 24 May 2000 13:02:09 -0400:
>The symbol I see between "the" and "key" is a capital Pi. Do you have a key
>on your keyboard for a capital Pi, or does it appear differently on my
>screen than on yours?
It probably appears differently. The key I was referring to has a
symbol that I really don't know the English name for... The symbol
looks like '1/2', but it's smaller.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Oh, yeah, and I don't get what's with the prudes who pronounce SCSI as
> "scuzzy", when the true pronunciation ought to be obvious.
Not prudery. We just associate the "true pronunciation" with the
SECSII (Semiconductor Equipment Communication Standard layer 2)
protocol, which was either "sex 2" or "sexy", and which predated SCSI
by a fair bit.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Never attempt to teach a pig to
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |sing; it wastes your time and
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |annoys the pig.
| Robert Heinlein
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Richard Fontana
Oh no.
My suggestion is that a lot of us use [A] but think of ourselves as using
[A.] (but not on AUE).
RF
Aaron J. Dinkin
<Pine.GSO.4.10.100052...@sawasdee.cc.columbia.edu>,
Richard Fontana <re...@columbia.edu> wrote:
Interesting. I use [A.] but for quite some time thought of myself as using [A].
Charles Riggs
<phag...@post.netlink.se> wrote:
>Apparently Charles Riggs <chr...@gofree.indigo.ie>
>wrote the following on Wed, 24 May 2000 11:42:37 -0700:
>
>>On Tue, 23 May 2000 11:12:50 +0200, Sven Peter Johan Haglund
>><kerb...@dataphone.se> wrote:
>>
>>>Apparently Charles Riggs <chr...@gofree.indigo.ie>
>>>wrote the following on Tue, 23 May 2000 08:13:20 -0700:
>>>
>>>>my present keyboard seems unable to make the vertical bar
>>>
>>>Unless it's broken, you certainly can use it to type the vertical bar.
>>
>>I meant it doesn't show up on any of the keys. In the old DOS days, my
>>keyboard directly supported the symbol.
>>
>>>Assuming you are a Windows user, you can use the 'Windows Character
>>>Map' to find out which keys to press when you want to type a character
>>>that isn't present on your keyboard.
>>
>>Yes, I'm aware of that. Oddly enough, for this case, when I select and
>>copy the vertical bar it gives me "½".
>
>I might be able to explain that phenomenon. By default, the Character
>Map is set to display the characters producable by the 'Symbol' font,
>and that font gives me a | when I press the ½ key. The Character Map
>has a drop down menu from which you can select a more appropriate
>font, such as Courier New or whichever font you're normally using when
>writing text.
It didn't include the font I use when writing, but one was close
enough and your suggestion works.
>>Anyway, the only use I'd have
>>for the symbol would be when using DOS, so the Windows Character Map
>>wouldn't be of help.
>
>It's 'Alt-124' if your copy of DOS is using codepage 850, which it
>should if you have an English version of DOS and a not too exotic
>keyboard. Hold down the Alt key and type '124' with the numerical
>keypad (it won't work with the 'normal' 1, 2 and 4 keys), this method
>might also work in Windows, again depending a little on how your
>system is configured.
Yes, that does it for me in both Windows and DOS.
Charles Riggs
Charles Riggs
This screw-up has happened before and has been especially noted by
people who see garbage on their screen when an "e grave" or "e acute"
was transmitted. Some people conclude it is best to avoid sending
special characters altogether for this reason.
Charles Riggs
a1a5...@sprint.ca
>
>Oh, yeah, and I don't get what's with the prudes who pronounce SCSI as
>"scuzzy", when the true pronunciation ought to be obvious.
>
>--
>R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@clark.net>
>:q (A vi user trying to get out of emacs)
Avi, like me, has probably never even considered buying a raincoat
like that.
As for scuzzy it's real cool. Surely a prude might prefer "scabrous"?
Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton
Dinkin) wrote:
> Yes, the same is true of me. Therefore Bob and I would be the wrong people
> to answer that question, because we can legitimately say that we don't know
> whether "DOS" is pronounced with "short o" or "aw". In fact, I had no idea
> that "loss", "toss", and so on were pronounced with "aw", which is the fact
> that motivated Richard's question. Is this true in all dialects, or only in
> some?
Certainly not in all. I have the same vowel in "loss", "DOS", and "tot"
-- "short o". At least, in the British part of my accent (medium-long
story).
Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <nospam...@gmx.li>
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Aaron J. Dinkin
(Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton) wrote:
> On Wed, 24 May 2000 03:10:52 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu (Aaron J.
> Dinkin) wrote:
>
> > Yes, the same is true of me. Therefore Bob and I would be the wrong people
> > to answer that question, because we can legitimately say that we don't know
> > whether "DOS" is pronounced with "short o" or "aw". In fact, I had no idea
> > that "loss", "toss", and so on were pronounced with "aw", which is the fact
> > that motivated Richard's question. Is this true in all dialects, or only in
> > some?
>
> Certainly not in all. I have the same vowel in "loss", "DOS", and "tot"
> -- "short o". At least, in the British part of my accent (medium-long
> story).
All right. In what dialects (that distinguish "aw" from "short o") do words
like "loss" and "toss" have "aw"? Anyone other than Richard have this
pronunciation?
R J Valentine
] In article <392d6920....@news.nikoma.de>, nospam...@gmx.li
Me! Me! I do!
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz
> ] like "loss" and "toss" have "aw"? Anyone other than Richard have this
> ] pronunciation?
>
> Me! Me! I do!
Used to. After two decades in Vermont, that's mostly gawn. Except for
cawffee. But then my "tot" has gone higher, too, so "loss" and "tot"
*still* don't sound the same!
Dennis
--
Dennis Báthory-Kitsz
MaltedMedia Productions: http://maltedmedia.com/
Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar: http://kalvos.org/
The Transitive Empire: http://maltedmedia.com/empire/
OrbitAccess Accessibility: http://orbitaccess.com/
Lullaby for Bill Gates: http://www.mp3.com/bathory/
ICQ: 10526261 / AIM: DBathory
Evan Kirshenbaum
> All right. In what dialects (that distinguish "aw" from "short o")
> do words like "loss" and "toss" have "aw"? Anyone other than Richard
> have this pronunciation?
I haven't been following this, but I assume that you're talking about
dialects that distinguish Don/Dawn, tot/taught, cot/caught, etc. If
so, then I can say that I speak one and "loss", "toss", "aw" (or
"awe") have the same vowel, as do "boss", "dross", "cross", "floss",
"moss", and "gloss". The only exception I can think of is the first
name of Joss Whedon, the creator of _Buffy, the Vampire Slayer_.
(And, of course, "-oss" words based on "gross".)
/As/ is possible in other positions: "pasta", "Rasta", "Roscoe",
"Oscar", "Bosco", "Osco".
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Sometimes I think the surest sign
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |that intelligent life exists
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |elsewhere in the universe is that
|none of it has tried to contact us.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Calvin
(650)857-7572
Pat Meadows
(Aaron J. Dinkin) wrote:
>In article <392d6920....@news.nikoma.de>, nospam...@gmx.li
>(Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton) wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 24 May 2000 03:10:52 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu (Aaron J.
>> Dinkin) wrote:
>>
>> > Yes, the same is true of me. Therefore Bob and I would be the wrong people
>> > to answer that question, because we can legitimately say that we don't know
>> > whether "DOS" is pronounced with "short o" or "aw". In fact, I had no idea
>> > that "loss", "toss", and so on were pronounced with "aw", which is the fact
>> > that motivated Richard's question. Is this true in all dialects, or only in
>> > some?
>>
>> Certainly not in all. I have the same vowel in "loss", "DOS", and "tot"
>> -- "short o". At least, in the British part of my accent (medium-long
>> story).
>
>All right. In what dialects (that distinguish "aw" from "short o") do words
>like "loss" and "toss" have "aw"? Anyone other than Richard have this
>pronunciation?
>
I do. The "aw" sound is also there when I pronounce
"coffee" and "dog." I think this is a New York City
accent. I'm not sure.
I've spent my life in the following places (sorry, but I
cannot think of any other way to do this).
Age 1-5 New York City
Age 5-14 Upstate New York
Age 14-22 Florida
Age 22-24 Westchester County, New York
Age 24-36 Northwestern New Jersey
Age 36-38 Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Age 38-44 Back to NW NJ
Age 44-54 Delaware
Age 54-55 Southern NJ (way south)
Age 55-56 Maryland
(Do we see a pattern here? There is no permanent escape
from New Jersey!)
What dialect/accent do I have? I don't know.
Pat
Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton
<ev...@garrett.hpl.hp.com> wrote:
> /As/ is possible in other positions: "pasta", "Rasta", "Roscoe",
> "Oscar", "Bosco", "Osco".
Interesting. I pronounce the first two of those with /&/.
Richard Fontana
> On 25 May 2000 15:47:34 -0700, Evan Kirshenbaum
> <ev...@garrett.hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>
> > /As/ is possible in other positions: "pasta", "Rasta", "Roscoe",
> > "Oscar", "Bosco", "Osco".
>
> Interesting. I pronounce the first two of those with /&/.
I've heard /p&st@/ from British speakers. In American English it's
essentially incorrect.
RF
Richard Fontana
> On Thu, 25 May 2000 15:27:07 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu
> (Aaron J. Dinkin) wrote:
>
> >In article <392d6920....@news.nikoma.de>, nospam...@gmx.li
> >(Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton) wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, 24 May 2000 03:10:52 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu (Aaron J.
> >> Dinkin) wrote:
> >>
> >> > Yes, the same is true of me. Therefore Bob and I would be the wrong people
> >> > to answer that question, because we can legitimately say that we don't know
> >> > whether "DOS" is pronounced with "short o" or "aw". In fact, I had no idea
> >> > that "loss", "toss", and so on were pronounced with "aw", which is the fact
> >> > that motivated Richard's question. Is this true in all dialects, or only in
> >> > some?
> >>
> >> Certainly not in all. I have the same vowel in "loss", "DOS", and "tot"
> >> -- "short o". At least, in the British part of my accent (medium-long
> >> story).
> >
> >All right. In what dialects (that distinguish "aw" from "short o") do words
> >like "loss" and "toss" have "aw"? Anyone other than Richard have this
> >pronunciation?
> >
> I do. The "aw" sound is also there when I pronounce
> "coffee" and "dog." I think this is a New York City
> accent. I'm not sure.
It's not just New York city. I think it's standard over a good deal of
the Northeast and Midwest. I strongly suspect that all US dialects that
distinguish "tot" and "taught" use the "aw" in words like "toss". I'm
not the best example here because I grew up in New York, though I don't
have a traditional New York accent. But just to give you an example, I
know an Indianapolis native who makes the same "ah"/"aw" distinction I
do, pretty much down to the precise phone, and she uses "aw" in "loss"
etc.
The traditional working-class New York accents are marked by the unusual
vowel that is chosen for "aw", but not by the use of "aw" itself, in the
classes of words you're referring to.
M-W gives only /lOs/ for "loss but gives both /tOs/ and /tAs/ for "toss"
(translated to ASCII IPA where /O/ is the "aw" and /A/ is "ah"). I'm not
sure what to make of this.
The general rule seems to be to use the "aw" vowel for spelt "o" in
monosyllables where the "o" is followed by -ss, -ff, -st, -ft, or -th, but
there are exceptions (an interesting one is "Goth", taking "ah", I believe
because it is analyzed as a back-formation from "Gothic"). (As for
"dog", in my idiolect it's the only -og word that has "aw" rather than
"ah".) I can't usefully generalize about multisyllabic words with
stressed spelt 'o' followed by those spelt consonants. Apart from those
that are clearly related to the monosyllabic ones, here are some that use
"aw":
coffin, Boston, often
and here are some that use "ah":
possible, hostile, Gothic, gossamer
I think I've heard, and maybe used, both possible pronunciations of
"Hoss".
RF
Richard Fontana
> R J Valentine wrote:
> >
> > Aaron J. Dinkin <din...@fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> > ]
> > ] All right. In what dialects (that distinguish "aw" from "short o") do words
> > ] like "loss" and "toss" have "aw"? Anyone other than Richard have this
> > ] pronunciation?
> >
> > Me! Me! I do!
>
> Used to. After two decades in Vermont, that's mostly gawn. Except for
> cawffee. But then my "tot" has gone higher, too, so "loss" and "tot"
> *still* don't sound the same!
In that case, wouldn't you say that you do use a kind of "aw" in "loss"?
Or does your idiolect have three distinct vowels, represented by the
vowels in "tot", "toss" and "coffee" (I don't know whether you rhyme that
with "toffee")?
I guess in my speech the vowels in "toss" and "coffee" are not exactly
alike, but they're close enough that I think of them as "aw". On the
other hand, I will use "aw" for eye dialect purposes to represent the
"taught" vowel in dialects different from my own where the vowel is more
rounded and perhaps higher (?), i.e., moving more towards [A.] and
[O]. (These seem often to be accompanied by a schwa-like sound following
the vowel.) Thus if I wanted to write down a New York-accented person's
"coffee" I might write it as "cawffee", even though I use *my* "aw" in
"coffee". Similarly "dawg" is how I'd represent a stereotypically New
York "dog", though I certainly use my "aw" in "dog" and not my "ah" (which
I use in "log", "frog", "cog", "bog", "smog", etc.).
I see you used "gawn" above, but in my idiolect this takes "ah" (short o).
RF
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz
>
> On Thu, 25 May 2000, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
> > Used to. After two decades in Vermont, that's mostly gawn. Except for
> > cawffee. But then my "tot" has gone higher, too, so "loss" and "tot"
> > *still* don't sound the same!
>
> In that case, wouldn't you say that you do use a kind of "aw" in "loss"?
> Or does your idiolect have three distinct vowels, represented by the
> vowels in "tot", "toss" and "coffee" (I don't know whether you rhyme that
> with "toffee")?
Ah, yes, you've got it. "Toffee" is the sticking place. I've never
carefully voiced the difference to myself, but indeed I say three
distinct vowels now -- because of my transplantedness and frequent GenX
contacts. I say "tot" like many GenXers say "box" (rhymes with "backs").
My "toffee", though, is lower, like you'd expect "tot" to sound. And my
"coffee" and "taught" have the further closure, recalling my New Jersey
upbringing. Yes, three sounds. Surprising.
> I guess in my speech the vowels in "toss" and "coffee" are not exactly
> alike, but they're close enough that I think of them as "aw". On the
> other hand, I will use "aw" for eye dialect purposes to represent the
> "taught" vowel in dialects different from my own where the vowel is more
> rounded and perhaps higher (?), i.e., moving more towards [A.] and
> [O]. (These seem often to be accompanied by a schwa-like sound following
> the vowel.) Thus if I wanted to write down a New York-accented person's
> "coffee" I might write it as "cawffee", even though I use *my* "aw" in
> "coffee". Similarly "dawg" is how I'd represent a stereotypically New
> York "dog", though I certainly use my "aw" in "dog" and not my "ah" (which
> I use in "log", "frog", "cog", "bog", "smog", etc.).
>
> I see you used "gawn" above, but in my idiolect this takes "ah" (short o).
Yes, aside from the lack of the higher (GenX or sometimes Valley) sound
in "tot", that's probably close. I don't say "gawn" anymore, but I
certainly did when I was younger (lower lip must protrude and eyes stare
with hostile intent).
I have an extensive radio interview of me made in 1970, and it's amazing
to me to hear my "New Jersey" voice!
Richard Fontana
> Richard Fontana wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 25 May 2000, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
> > > Used to. After two decades in Vermont, that's mostly gawn. Except for
> > > cawffee. But then my "tot" has gone higher, too, so "loss" and "tot"
> > > *still* don't sound the same!
> >
> > In that case, wouldn't you say that you do use a kind of "aw" in "loss"?
> > Or does your idiolect have three distinct vowels, represented by the
> > vowels in "tot", "toss" and "coffee" (I don't know whether you rhyme that
> > with "toffee")?
>
> Ah, yes, you've got it. "Toffee" is the sticking place. I've never
> carefully voiced the difference to myself, but indeed I say three
> distinct vowels now -- because of my transplantedness and frequent GenX
> contacts. I say "tot" like many GenXers say "box" (rhymes with "backs").
I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about, but I have a hunch. I
should say that I'm considered "GenX" and would never say there is any
tendency for GenX people per se to shift the vowel in "box" toward that in
"backs. However, this is exactly how I'd describe the Northern Cities
Vowel Shift with respect to "short o", which, since it's a growing and
spreading phenomenon, may be something you've encountered in Vermont among
younger people. The Northern Cities Vowel Shift is supposed to have
spread as far east as Vermont. Do these same GenX people say "backs" like
"bee-acks"? If so, this is the NCVS, and it could be that your own speech
is being influenced by it too.
That's not to say that there are no national pronunciation developments
specific to GenX people but nationwide in scope. In previous postings
I've mentioned a few that I've noticed in my speech and the speech of my
contemporaries. In many words with so-called
"long o" and "long u" the first part of the diphthong gets significantly
un-rounded and is shifted further to the front of the mouth. These are
pronunciations I hear from speakers in their twenties and early thirties,
generally middle class and university-educated, but I don't hear them
in the speech of persons in their late thirties or older (except in
certain regional accents). These pronunciations are somehow connected to
the exaggerated "Valley Girl" speech that attracted national attention in
the early 1980s.
RF
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz
>
> On Fri, 26 May 2000, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
> > Ah, yes, you've got it. "Toffee" is the sticking place. I've never
> > carefully voiced the difference to myself, but indeed I say three
> > distinct vowels now -- because of my transplantedness and frequent GenX
> > contacts. I say "tot" like many GenXers say "box" (rhymes with "backs").
>
> I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about, but I have a hunch. I
> should say that I'm considered "GenX" and would never say there is any
> tendency for GenX people per se to shift the vowel in "box" toward that in
> "backs.
I'm using national TV commercials as my source; I first noticed this in
a Tampax commercial where the tendency was for the young white women to
say "bax" rather than "box". Then I started hearing it more frequently,
noticeably in a Werther's candy commercial, and an AT&T ad. This
pronunciation was clearer in the female voices.
> Do these same GenX people say "backs" like
> "bee-acks"?
No, definitely not that shift (the one you suggest is the one I was
noting in the "Ann"="Ian" post in the "Naming your child" thread).
It may be something Bob Cunningham (IIRC) has mentioned about the
flattening of distinction between vowel sounds in California. Since so
much of the entertainment comes from there and spreads into kids' speech
("can you say 'doh!'"), I suspect I may be hearing -- and adopting(!) --
the artifacts of that.
Dennis
P.S. Among Vermont young people, speech patterns are a real mongrel
mess, as I guess would be the case in any media-influenced rural area.
Bob Cunningham
Saying 'essentially incorrect' is probably putting it too strongly.
_Random House Webster's Unabridged_ has:
pas·ta |'pAst@| esp. Brit. |'p&st@|
Saying 'especially British' is about equivalent to saying 'sometimes
American but mostly British'.
_Merriam-Webster's Collegiate_ has:
|'pAst@| _also_ |'p&st@|
In a Merriam-Webster dictionary 'also' means 'acceptable, but less
frequently heard'.
So neither dictionary implies that an American pronunciation |'p&st@|
is unacceptable.
Bob Cunningham
<re...@columbia.edu> said:
[ . . . ]
>I guess in my speech the vowels in "toss" and "coffee" are not exactly
>alike, but they're close enough that I think of them as "aw". On the
>other hand, I will use "aw" for eye dialect purposes to represent the
>"taught" vowel in dialects different from my own where the vowel is more
>rounded and perhaps higher (?), i.e., moving more towards [A.] and
>[O].
Your 'perhaps higher (?), i.e., moving more towards [A.] and [O]'
doesn't make sense. |A.| is as low as you can get, and |O| is lower
than mid. From where do you think you're moving?
Bob Cunningham
<re...@columbia.edu> said:
>On Thu, 25 May 2000, Pat Meadows wrote:
>> On Thu, 25 May 2000 15:27:07 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu
>> (Aaron J. Dinkin) wrote:
>> >In article <392d6920....@news.nikoma.de>, nospam...@gmx.li
>> >(Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton) wrote:
>> >> On Wed, 24 May 2000 03:10:52 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu (Aaron J.
>> >> Dinkin) wrote:
>> >> > Yes, the same is true of me. Therefore Bob and I would be the wrong people
>> >> > to answer that question, because we can legitimately say that we don't know
>> >> > whether "DOS" is pronounced with "short o" or "aw".
If by 'Bob' you mean me, I would be a wrong person to address when
using the nonsensical terms 'short o' and 'aw sound'.
>> >> > In fact, I had no idea
>> >> > that "loss", "toss", and so on were pronounced with "aw", which is the fact
>> >> > that motivated Richard's question. Is this true in all dialects, or only in
>> >> > some?
_Random House Webster's Unabridged_ has two pronunciations, using the
same two vowels, for each of 'boss', 'loss', 'lost', 'cost', 'Ross',
'ross', 'Moss', and 'moss'.
I've avoided saying what the two vowels are, because the second vowel
they give is not the same as the vowel in 'father'. Because of the
regrettable failure of American dictionaries to use IPA, it's not easy
to know what sounds they intend to represent with their pronunciation
symbols.
Yes, some CD dictionaries have audio pronunciations -- I have three
such CDs, but the audio pronunciations don't seem to be consistent in
every case with the written pronunciation. A striking example lies in
their pronunciations of 'sought' and 'sort'. The written
pronunciations show the same vowel in the two, but the audio
pronunciations are quite different. I would transcribe their audio
pronunciations as |sAt| and |sOrt|, respectively.
[ . . . ]
>The traditional working-class New York accents are marked by the unusual
>vowel that is chosen for "aw", but not by the use of "aw" itself, in the
>classes of words you're referring to.
Here the absurdity of using the phrase 'the "aw" sound' is illustrated
by the fact that in a single sentence reference is made to '"aw"
itself' and the 'the unusual vowel that is chose for "aw"' in certain
New York accents. Isn't the contradiction obvious? There's no such
thing as 'the "aw" itself'. Words with 'aw' are pronounced
differently not only in New York but in other places.
>M-W gives only /lOs/ for "loss but gives both /tOs/ and /tAs/ for "toss"
>(translated to ASCII IPA where /O/ is the "aw" and /A/ is "ah"). I'm not
>sure what to make of this.
As noted above, Merriam-Webster disagrees with Random House in giving
only one pronunciation for 'loss'. It also disagrees with _Webster's
New World College Dictionary_ and _The American Heritage Third
Edition_.
It saddens me to see so many posters using useless phrases like 'the
"aw" vowel'. The only possible interpretation a reader can give to
'the "aw" vowel' is that it's the sound he or she uses in pronouncing
'aw', and this will vary from one speaker to another. Hence it's
useless in attempted communication between two speakers who may not
pronounce 'aw' the same.
Why can't people stick to ASCII IPA, where each symbol can be
associated with a sound by listening to the sounds from the
International Phonetic Association or the University of Lausanne?
The vowel sounds from both of these sources are available at the AUE
Web site:
http://go.to/aue
=> ASCII IPA with only American examples
Incidentally, 'ASCII IPA with only American examples' is a serious
misnomer. It came about as a result of removing some French, British,
and German examples from the original ASCII IPA tutorial, but I later
added the Phonetic Association and Lausanne sounds, which are far from
being American only. I think I may change the title to something like
'ASCII IPA with American emphasis'.
Aaron J. Dinkin
malgran...@bigfoot.com wrote:
> On Fri, 26 May 2000 04:13:24 -0400, Richard Fontana
> <re...@columbia.edu> said:
>
> >On Thu, 25 May 2000, Pat Meadows wrote:
>
> >> On Thu, 25 May 2000 15:27:07 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu
> >> (Aaron J. Dinkin) wrote:
>
> >> >In article <392d6920....@news.nikoma.de>, nospam...@gmx.li
> >> >(Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton) wrote:
>
> >> >> On Wed, 24 May 2000 03:10:52 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu (Aaron J.
> >> >> Dinkin) wrote:
>
> >> >> > Yes, the same is true of me. Therefore Bob and I would be the wrong
> >> >> > people to answer that question, because we can legitimately say that
> >> >> > we don't know whether "DOS" is pronounced with "short o" or "aw".
>
> If by 'Bob' you mean me, I would be a wrong person to address when
> using the nonsensical terms 'short o' and 'aw sound'.
The terms are not nonsensical. "Short o" means, loosely, "the vowel you use
in words like 'tot', 'lock', 'hop', and so on". "Aw" means "the vowel you
use in words like 'law', 'walk', 'taught', and so on". In your dialect, as
in mine, "aw" and "short o" are identical, so you and I can't helpfully
answer questions about distinctions between the two.
> >> >> > In fact, I had no idea that "loss", "toss", and so on were pronounced
> >> >> > with "aw", which is the fact that motivated Richard's question. Is
> >> >> > this true in all dialects, or only in some?
>
> _Random House Webster's Unabridged_ has two pronunciations, using the
> same two vowels, for each of 'boss', 'loss', 'lost', 'cost', 'Ross',
> 'ross', 'Moss', and 'moss'.
>
> I've avoided saying what the two vowels are, because the second vowel
> they give is not the same as the vowel in 'father'.
Is the first one? That is, is either of the vowels they give the same as
the one in "father"? (This is not an absurd question: Merriam-Webster gives
two vowels for "toss", one of which is the same as in "father"; AHD gives
two vowels for "toss", neither of which is the same as in "father".)
> Because of the regrettable failure of American dictionaries to use IPA, it's
> not easy to know what sounds they intend to represent with their pronunciation
> symbols.
This is not a failure - it makes the dictionaries more applicable to more
people. They do not (or should not) intend to represent specific _sounds_
with their pronunciation symbols; they only represent sound _patterns_. If
you transcribe with IPA, you have to pick a specific dialect to conform to:
thus if you transcribe "flaw" as [flO] in an American dictionary, all of a
sudden your transcription is only accurate for some New York accents. If
you use a symbol for the vowel that means nothing but "the same vowel that
is in 'taught'", it becomes correct for everyone.
> >The traditional working-class New York accents are marked by the unusual
> >vowel that is chosen for "aw", but not by the use of "aw" itself, in the
> >classes of words you're referring to.
>
> Here the absurdity of using the phrase 'the "aw" sound'
No one used the phrase "the 'aw' sound" except you. We are not identifying
the generalized "aw" with a specific sound.
> is illustrated by the fact that in a single sentence reference is made to
> '"aw" itself' and the 'the unusual vowel that is chose for "aw"' in certain
> New York accents. Isn't the contradiction obvious? There's no such
> thing as 'the "aw" itself'.
Again, no one said "the 'aw' itself". What Richard wrote was "the use of
'aw' itself".
To paraphrase what Richard said: Traditional New York working-class accents
are not unusual in using the same vowel in these classes of words as in
"taught", "law", and so on. They are unusual in their choice of the
specific vowel used in such words.
> It saddens me to see so many posters using useless phrases like 'the
> "aw" vowel'. The only possible interpretation a reader can give to
> 'the "aw" vowel' is that it's the sound he or she uses in pronouncing
> 'aw', and this will vary from one speaker to another. Hence it's
> useless in attempted communication between two speakers who may not
> pronounce 'aw' the same.
Not at all. We're not trying to figure out how different speakers pronounce
"aw". We're just trying to figure out what words have the same vowel as
"aw", which is an entirely different question.
> Why can't people stick to ASCII IPA, where each symbol can be
> associated with a sound by listening to the sounds from the
> International Phonetic Association or the University of Lausanne?
We don't care about associating "aw" and "short o" with specific sounds;
indeed, they have different sounds in different dialects. Using ASCII IPA
would only obfuscate the main point of the discussion.
R J Valentine
...
] If by 'Bob' you mean me, I would be a wrong person to address when
] using the nonsensical terms 'short o' and 'aw sound'.
] Why can't people stick to ASCII IPA, where each symbol can be
] associated with a sound by listening to the sounds from the
] International Phonetic Association or the University of Lausanne?
] The vowel sounds from both of these sources are available at the AUE
I want to apologize publicly for presuming some seven messages higher in
this thread tree to predict what Mr. Cunningham would say in a discussion
of this sort and thus to encourage the young folks to refer to him simply
as "Bob". I knew when I did it that there was a good chance I might be in
error in reading his mind long-distance, and I am thoroughly ashamed of
myself.
Bob Cunningham
Dinkin) said:
>In article <O50uOYXpxtT62P...@4ax.com>,
>malgran...@bigfoot.com wrote:
>> On Fri, 26 May 2000 04:13:24 -0400, Richard Fontana
>> <re...@columbia.edu> said:
>> >On Thu, 25 May 2000, Pat Meadows wrote:
>> >> On Thu, 25 May 2000 15:27:07 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu
>> >> (Aaron J. Dinkin) wrote:
>> >> >In article <392d6920....@news.nikoma.de>, nospam...@gmx.li
>> >> >(Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton) wrote:
>> >> >> On Wed, 24 May 2000 03:10:52 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu (Aaron J.
>> >> >> Dinkin) wrote:
>> >> >> > Yes, the same is true of me. Therefore Bob and I would be the wrong
>> >> >> > people to answer that question, because we can legitimately say that
>> >> >> > we don't know whether "DOS" is pronounced with "short o" or "aw".
>> If by 'Bob' you mean me, I would be a wrong person to address when
>> using the nonsensical terms 'short o' and 'aw sound'.
>The terms are not nonsensical. "Short o" means, loosely, "the vowel you use
>in words like 'tot', 'lock', 'hop', and so on". "Aw" means "the vowel you
>use in words like 'law', 'walk', 'taught', and so on". In your dialect, as
>in mine, "aw" and "short o" are identical, so you and I can't helpfully
>answer questions about distinctions between the two.
That's not true. I can helpfully say that I've talked with people
from both New Jersey and Indiana who said |kOt| for 'caught' and |kAt|
for 'cot'. I can also helpfully say that I would expect to hear from
the same people |tAt|, |lAk|, |hAp|, |lO|, |wOk|, and |tOt|.
>> >> >> > In fact, I had no idea that "loss", "toss", and so on were pronounced
>> >> >> > with "aw", which is the fact that motivated Richard's question. Is
>> >> >> > this true in all dialects, or only in some?
I pronounce 'loss' and 'toss' with the vowel of 'aw', and my
pronunciation of 'aw' may be slightly different from my vowel in
'hot'. But it's not different enough that I would want to use
different IPA symbols for the two.
Suppose I did count myself among those who use different vowels in
'cot' and 'law'. Unless you know what those vowels are, what good
does it do for me to tell you that? For all you know, my vowels might
be |A| and |a|, and my input would have little bearing on what you all
are trying so futilely to discuss.
>> _Random House Webster's Unabridged_ has two pronunciations, using the
>> same two vowels, for each of 'boss', 'loss', 'lost', 'cost', 'Ross',
>> 'ross', 'Moss', and 'moss'.
>> I've avoided saying what the two vowels are, because the second vowel
>> they give is not the same as the vowel in 'father'.
>Is the first one?
No. The first one is the vowel in 'law'. The second one is one they
represent by lowercase 'o' with no diacritic. I have no idea what
sound they intend to represent by it. In terms of the present
discussion, this means that I have no idea what distinction they are
trying to express between the two pronunciations, just as you really
don't really know what distinction is being referred to by the people
in your discussion, or how great the distinction is.
>That is, is either of the vowels they give the same as
>the one in "father"? (This is not an absurd question: Merriam-Webster gives
>two vowels for "toss", one of which is the same as in "father";
Yes, I noticed that. Since I've discovered that Merriam-Webster
equate their pronunciation symbols with IPA symbols, I now know that
the two vowels they show in 'toss' are |O| and |A|.
>AHD gives two vowels for "toss", neither of which is the same as in
>"father".)
>> Because of the regrettable failure of American dictionaries to use IPA, it's
>> not easy to know what sounds they intend to represent with their pronunciation
>> symbols.
>This is not a failure - it makes the dictionaries more applicable to more
>people. They do not (or should not) intend to represent specific _sounds_
>with their pronunciation symbols; they only represent sound _patterns_. If
>you transcribe with IPA, you have to pick a specific dialect to conform to:
>thus if you transcribe "flaw" as [flO] in an American dictionary, all of a
>sudden your transcription is only accurate for some New York accents.
I don't think that's true.
Actually, I've only just now discovered that the _Merriam-Webster
Collegiate_ *does* use IPA in its guide to pronunciation. The guide
to pronunciation in _Webster's Third New International_ does not.
The _Collegiate_ says that their 'o' with a single dot over it is
equivalent to the IPA symbol sometimes called 'open o'(See note A),
which is equivalent to ASCII IPA |O|. They say that it's the sound
used in 'saw, all, gnaw, caught'. I think the pronunciation |flO|
must be much more prevalent than you imply. In fact, I have had
occasion to hear it from people who were from Indiana.
>If
>you use a symbol for the vowel that means nothing but "the same vowel that
>is in 'taught'", it becomes correct for everyone.
But if you then try to discuss pronunciations in terms of dialects
that make distinctions and dialects that don't, no one really knows
what anyone else is talking about. Some could be thinking of
vanishingly small distinctions while others could be thinking of large
distinctions.
The absurdity of using words to define pronunciation symbols is most
strikingly illustrated in the _Chambers Dictionary_, where we are told
that a certain symbol represents the vowel in 'name, aid, rein, tare,
wear, hair, heir, fairy'. I commented on this in AUE sometime ago,
and no one in England said that they pronounced all of those words
with the same vowel. Furthermore, the version of RP supported by _The
New Shorter Oxford_ doesn't have the same vowel in all of them. For
example, it has |hE:| for 'hair' and |neIm| for 'name'.
>> >The traditional working-class New York accents are marked by the unusual
>> >vowel that is chosen for "aw", but not by the use of "aw" itself, in the
>> >classes of words you're referring to.
>> Here the absurdity of using the phrase 'the "aw" sound'
>No one used the phrase "the 'aw' sound" except you. We are not identifying
>the generalized "aw" with a specific sound.
Pat Meadows explicitly used the phrase 'the "aw" sound', thereby
refuting Aaron Dinkin's assertion that no one except me uses it, when
he said:
| The "aw" sound is also there when I pronounce "coffee" and "dog."
Richard Fontana used the phrase 'the "aw"' in a way that showed
clearly that he associated it with a particular sound when he said:
| I strongly suspect that all US dialects that distinguish "tot" and
| "taught" use the "aw" in words like "toss".
Otherwise he shouldn't have said 'use the "aw" in words like "toss"'
but should have said 'use the vowel of "taught" in words like "toss"'.
>> is illustrated by the fact that in a single sentence reference is made to
>> '"aw" itself' and the 'the unusual vowel that is chose for "aw"' in certain
>> New York accents. Isn't the contradiction obvious? There's no such
>> thing as 'the "aw" itself'.
>Again, no one said "the 'aw' itself". What Richard wrote was "the use of
>'aw' itself".
No significant difference. The phrase 'the use of "aw" itself'
implies that 'aw' stands for some sound that is different from the
'unusual vowel that is chose[n] for "aw"' in certain New York accents.
It therefore clearly implies that Richard has some certain sound in
mind when he speaks of 'aw'. Note that he didn't say 'the use of *my*
"aw"', so he was thinking of some general pronunciation represented by
'aw' that was different from the vowel chosen for 'aw' in certain New
York accents.
What Richard really said was:
| The traditional working-class New York accents are marked by the
| unusual vowel that is chosen for "aw", but not by the use of "aw"
| itself, in the classes of words you're referring to.
If he's not thinking of a certain sound that he associates with 'aw',
what sense would it make to speak of 'the unusual vowel that is chosen
for "aw"' in certain New York accents? By using the word 'unusual' he
implies that his pronunciation is usual.
>To paraphrase what Richard said: Traditional New York working-class accents
>are not unusual in using the same vowel in these classes of words as in
>"taught", "law", and so on. They are unusual in their choice of the
>specific vowel used in such words.
Yes indeed. Like I said. He's thinking of some pronunciation of 'aw'
that's not unusual. And everyone else is supposed to understand what
sound he has in mind. Unless he uses IPA or provides a sound file on
some Web site, no one really knows.
>> It saddens me to see so many posters using useless phrases like 'the
>> "aw" vowel'. The only possible interpretation a reader can give to
>> 'the "aw" vowel' is that it's the sound he or she uses in pronouncing
>> 'aw', and this will vary from one speaker to another. Hence it's
>> useless in attempted communication between two speakers who may not
>> pronounce 'aw' the same.
>Not at all. We're not trying to figure out how different speakers pronounce
>"aw". We're just trying to figure out what words have the same vowel as
>"aw", which is an entirely different question.
Okay, I'll contribute the following to that discussion: Words that
have the same vowel as 'aw' are 'father', 'bother', 'hock', and
'hawk'.
But probably what you meant to say was 'words that have the same vowel
as "aw" in idiolects that distinguish 'ah' and 'aw', but that phrasing
would be meaningless without some specification of the degree of
difference.
It's a meaningless question to ask what words have the same vowel as
'aw' unless you find some way to describe the degree of difference of
that vowel from other vowels. ASCII IPA gives us a way to make the
degree of difference much more specific.
>> Why can't people stick to ASCII IPA, where each symbol can be
>> associated with a sound by listening to the sounds from the
>> International Phonetic Association or the University of Lausanne?
>We don't care about associating "aw" and "short o" with specific sounds;
>indeed, they have different sounds in different dialects. Using ASCII IPA
>would only obfuscate the main point of the discussion.
Far from obfuscating it, it would turn it into a useful discussion,
because the sounds being discussed could be agreed upon. If I tell
someone that I use the same vowel in 'taught' and 'law' and somebody
from New Jersey says 'Hey, I do, too!', what has been accomplished? I
know that they probably pronounces them |tOt| and |lO|, but there's a
good chance that they won't know that I pronounce them |TAt| and |lA|.
If I then say that I use different vowels in 'cot' and 'caught' and
they say 'Hey, I do, too!', again no real information has been
exchanged. They may be thinking of the pronunciations |kAt| and |kOt|
while I may be thinking of such a fine shade of difference that they
wouldn't perceive any significant difference at all.
The fallacy of your discussion is that you talk about dialects that
distinguish the vowels in 'cot' and 'caught', but you don't make any
attempt to specify to what extent they're distinguished. Richard
Fontana talks about all sorts of distinctions in his pronunciation
that I can't hear when I listen to his 'Bother, father caught hot
coffee in the car park.' But when I listened to my former Indiana
acquaintances I knew that there was a great deal of difference between
their 'hawk' and 'hock' (|hOk| and |hAk|).
If the participants in your discussions would listen to the Lausanne
recordings and choose and use the IPA symbols that most closely
represent the sounds they speak, then your discussions would begin to
have some meaning.
If the differences are not great enough to be represented by different
IPA symbols, then they're probably not worth discussing.
Once more, the Lausanne vowel sounds can be listened to at:
http://go.to/aue
=> ASCII IPA with only American examples
And again once, more don't be deceived by the misleading 'only
American examples'. That description ceased to be adequate when I
added the sound files from Lausanne and from the Phonetic Association.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Note A: The term 'open o' is unfortunate because it leads people to
think it has something to do with the articulatory term 'open'. What
it really refers to is a letter 'o' with one side opened. (I
discussed this at some length a year or three ago with a former AUE
respected regular who was normally quite well-informed, but who
finally admitted that I was right, having found a reference that
supported what I was saying.) I really would rather call it a
'reversed c', but 'open o' seems to be the more commonly accepted
name.
Richard Fontana
> Richard Fontana wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, 26 May 2000, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
> > > Ah, yes, you've got it. "Toffee" is the sticking place. I've never
> > > carefully voiced the difference to myself, but indeed I say three
> > > distinct vowels now -- because of my transplantedness and frequent GenX
> > > contacts. I say "tot" like many GenXers say "box" (rhymes with "backs").
> >
> > I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about, but I have a hunch. I
> > should say that I'm considered "GenX" and would never say there is any
> > tendency for GenX people per se to shift the vowel in "box" toward that in
> > "backs.
>
> I'm using national TV commercials as my source; I first noticed this in
> a Tampax commercial where the tendency was for the young white women to
> say "bax" rather than "box". Then I started hearing it more frequently,
> noticeably in a Werther's candy commercial, and an AT&T ad. This
> pronunciation was clearer in the female voices.
Interesting; I wish I could see those commercials now. This does make me
think about the confusion I've experienced with respect to the use of IPA,
or ASCII IPA, in discussions of US pronunciation. In particular, I
couldn't understand why /A/ was chosen as a conventional representation of
the "tot" vowel and /O/ for the "taught" vowel when it became increasingly
clear to me that my vowel in "taught" was close to [A] and my vowel in
"tot" was moving towards [a], and that as far as I could tell other
Americans who did not have noticeable regional accents seemed to be using
similar vowels to mine.
I wonder, though, whether, if I had heard those commercials you referred
to, I would consider such speech "regional". A lot of people in national
commercials have accents that I would not consider "national" and which I
can often locate geographically. One that immediately comes to
mind is a recent Xerox commercial which featured the actor who played J.
Peterman on "Seinfeld". The boy in that commercial says "Yeah, right!" at
the end with the vowel in "right" shifted in the Midwestern/Northern
Cities shift matter (something like [r&It]); it was quite noticeable. And
he also says "copier" like "cappier". Now since this was a young boy I
suppose you could conclude that this is probably a national pronunciation
change, no longer isolatable to the upper Midwest, but rather
characteristic of most white middle class youngsters, but I haven't seen
any general evidence of this. More generally, I've noticed on some
national commercials that a character will employ some sort of mild
regional accent, very often some type of Midwestern, in order to seem more
"down to earth" without being too alienating (at least that's how I
interpret it).
> > Do these same GenX people say "backs" like
> > "bee-acks"?
>
> No, definitely not that shift (the one you suggest is the one I was
> noting in the "Ann"="Ian" post in the "Naming your child" thread).
So that does complicate matters. Still, before I read about the Northern
Cities Shift, and before I spent any time in the upper Midwest, I was
aware that many Americans sufficiently inland from the Atlantic coast
pronounced "Bob" like "Babb" without engaging in any other systematic
vowel shifting. What was striking to me when I moved from New York to
Michigan was not the "Babb" pronunciation but the other one, the [I@] for
"short a".
> It may be something Bob Cunningham (IIRC) has mentioned about the
> flattening of distinction between vowel sounds in California. Since so
> much of the entertainment comes from there and spreads into kids' speech
> ("can you say 'doh!'"), I suspect I may be hearing -- and adopting(!) --
> the artifacts of that.
In general I think the influence of California on pronunciation (though
maybe not on slang) is greatly exaggerated. Anyway, we know that
Californians tend to eliminate any distinction between "box" and "bawks",
but if they were to also eliminate any distinction between "box" and
"backs", we'd pretty soon get into a situation where Californians would
only have schwas. I guess this could happen, but I think it would be
really inefficient.
Your comment about the shifting being clearer in female voices was
interesting. Maybe more evidence that the primary agents of linguistic
and pronunciation change are girls, and not boys.
RF
Richard Fontana
> On Fri, 26 May 2000 04:32:29 -0400, Richard Fontana
> <re...@columbia.edu> said:
>
> [ . . . ]
>
> >I guess in my speech the vowels in "toss" and "coffee" are not exactly
> >alike, but they're close enough that I think of them as "aw". On the
> >other hand, I will use "aw" for eye dialect purposes to represent the
> >"taught" vowel in dialects different from my own where the vowel is more
> >rounded and perhaps higher (?), i.e., moving more towards [A.] and
> >[O].
>
> Your 'perhaps higher (?), i.e., moving more towards [A.] and [O]'
> doesn't make sense. |A.| is as low as you can get, and |O| is lower
> than mid. From where do you think you're moving?
I mean moving from slightly fronted and unrounded |A| to fully back
and rounded |A.|, and then further to |O|. |O| is more aww-ish than
|A.|. If |A.| is "aw", then |O| is "awww", almost "oh".
RF
Richard Fontana
[RF:]
> >The traditional working-class New York accents are marked by the unusual
> >vowel that is chosen for "aw", but not by the use of "aw" itself, in the
> >classes of words you're referring to.
>
> Here the absurdity of using the phrase 'the "aw" sound' is illustrated
> by the fact that in a single sentence reference is made to '"aw"
> itself' and the 'the unusual vowel that is chose for "aw"' in certain
> New York accents. Isn't the contradiction obvious? There's no such
> thing as 'the "aw" itself'. Words with 'aw' are pronounced
> differently not only in New York but in other places.
But there is some common ground. It's an interesting fact that apparently
all Americans who distinguish "tot" from "taught", regardless of the
precise phonetic values chosen for those vowels, will put "toss" in the
"aw" class, never in the "ah" class. And that speaking of these two
classes of words will make sense to any such speaker. (If there's any
American speaker reading this who distinguishes "tot" from "taught" but
who does not have any idea what I mean by "tot" being in the "ah"-class
and "taught" being in the "aw"-class, speak now or forever hold your
peace.)
> It saddens me to see so many posters using useless phrases like 'the
> "aw" vowel'. The only possible interpretation a reader can give to
> 'the "aw" vowel' is that it's the sound he or she uses in pronouncing
> 'aw', and this will vary from one speaker to another. Hence it's
> useless in attempted communication between two speakers who may not
> pronounce 'aw' the same.
>
> Why can't people stick to ASCII IPA, where each symbol can be
> associated with a sound by listening to the sounds from the
> International Phonetic Association or the University of Lausanne?
I still think there's some utility in having some way of representing
vowels that transcends dialects but signifies the relationships among
different dialects. Without focusing on the details of the actual
phonetic values of the vowels used by speakers, we can form categories of
literate American speakers based on how they view "aw", "ah", etc. I
realize that this seems like what the use of ASCII IPA was instituted to
guard against, but I think as long as IPA is used as well as this scheme
of psycho-orthographical trans-dialectal vowel representations no harm
should result. How speakers view written "aw", for example, may provide
clues about non-obvious relationships and kinships among otherwise very
different dialects and accents.
I will add that, though this is not a criticism of IPA but of my own
hearing and lack of training in phonetics, I find it difficult to use
ASCII IPA because the vowels I use and want to transcribe seem always to
fall in the interstices of the recorded vowels you've made available on
your web page. I realize that it is a misconception that IPA vowels
represent a single phonetic value rather than a range of values, but I
sometimes think that the IPA scheme is poor at representing
contemporary American English with a high degree of both accuracy and
simplicity. The clearest example of this is the sound I believe is
most commonly used by Americans in "father". Why doesn't IPA have a
standard vowel between [a] and [A]? There should be a "central" vowel
that corresponds to front [a] and back [A].
RF
Richard Fontana
> On Fri, 26 May 2000, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
>
> > Richard Fontana wrote:
>
> > > Do these same GenX people say "backs" like
> > > "bee-acks"?
> >
> > No, definitely not that shift (the one you suggest is the one I was
> > noting in the "Ann"="Ian" post in the "Naming your child" thread).
You associated that with the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, but the
"bee-acks" for "backs" shift is characteristic of the upper Midwest and is
still regarded as strange and unsettling in the coastal Northeast
and, I suspect, the mid-Atlantic. As I pointed out, however, this shift
seems to have reached as far east as Vermont, presumably having migrated
eastward from Buffalo.
RF
Bob Cunningham
<re...@columbia.edu> said:
[ . . . ]
>I find it difficult to use
>ASCII IPA because the vowels I use and want to transcribe seem always to
>fall in the interstices of the recorded vowels you've made available on
>your web page. I realize that it is a misconception that IPA vowels
>represent a single phonetic value rather than a range of values, but I
>sometimes think that the IPA scheme is poor at representing
>contemporary American English with a high degree of both accuracy and
>simplicity. The clearest example of this is the sound I believe is
>most commonly used by Americans in "father". Why doesn't IPA have a
>standard vowel between [a] and [A]? There should be a "central" vowel
>that corresponds to front [a] and back [A].
I find that observation quite interesting. There is in fact a vowel
in IPA that comes close to your specification. It's rendered as an
upside-down 'a'. In the University of Lausanne Online Phonetics
Course at <http://www.unil.ch/ling/phonetique/api-eng.html> it's
described as follows:
4.3.2 Half-Open Central Vowels
[upside-down 'a'] Central vowel (half-open). In reality,
this vowel falls between the third and fourth degrees of
aperture. This articulation is considered neutral from
the point of view of lip-rounding as well (neither
rounded nor unrounded).
This symbol is of particular interest to me because I've recently
noticed that in the pronunciation guide to the _Merriam-Webster
Collegiate_ it's one of two IPA symbols that are given as equivalents
to their 'a with dot over', which is the symbol used for one of their
pronunciations of 'father'.
All of this can be interpreted as saying that they think one possible
pronunciation of 'father' uses a vowel that is midway between |A| and
|a| (central) but somewhat less open than they are.
There's no single symbol for this vowel in ASCII IPA, but you can
represent it using the generalized scheme that Evan provides:
{near-low,cnt,unr,vwl}. By 'near-low' I mean midway between lower mid
and low. Or you could use one of the ad hoc symbols that Evan
provides, '%' and '$', defining it on the spot in each posting in
which you use it. You can see these ad hoc symbols at
<http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Evan_Kirshenbaum/IPA/faq.html>,
searching on the string 'Ad Hoc Segment'.
I also find it interesting at Evan's URL that I've cited above that
his definition of |a| is not in agreement with the IPA definition.
IPA defines it as {open,front,unrounded,vowel}, while Evan defines it
as {low,cnt,unr,vwl}. ('Low' and 'open' are equivalent.) If you use
Evan's definition, |a| is the vowel you're asking for. It seems more
orderly to me, though, to stick with the IPA definitions.
As an alternative to the ad hoc symbols, I don't see anything wrong
with using {inv-a} to represent the IPA inverted 'a', so long as you
define it in each posting in which you use it. For example, you could
then represent the pronunciation of 'father' as |'f{inv-a}D@r|.
Bob Cunningham
<re...@columbia.edu> said:
[ . . . ]
>(If there's any
>American speaker reading this who distinguishes "tot" from "taught" but
>who does not have any idea what I mean by "tot" being in the "ah"-class
>and "taught" being in the "aw"-class, speak now or forever hold your
>peace.)
I don't distinguish 'tot' from 'taught', but I'm familiar with the
pronunciations of some people who do. I would have thought that I
knew about what you mean by 'aw-class' if I hadn't listened to your
pronunciation of 'caught' in 'Bother, father caught hot coffee in the
car park.'
I made a sound file interleaving a greatly extended version of your
pronunciation of 'caught' with the IPA renditions of cardinal vowels
4, 5, and 13 (|a|, |A|, and |A.|). As you may remember, you can
listen to it at
<http://go.to/aue
=> Current AUE FAQ Supplement
=> R Fontana sound comparisons (under 'Speech examples')
=> <rf_caught_and_cards_4_5_13_8_bit.wav>'
From that sound file I find that your pronunciation of 'caught' is
quite close to |A|, certainly closer than it is to |a| or |A.|. I
think it's not at all close to |O| and therefore nothing like what I
would think you meant by '"aw" class'.
I'll plan to extend the file, interleaving in addition with |O| and
upside-down 'a'.
Aaron J. Dinkin
malgran...@bigfoot.com wrote:
> On Fri, 26 May 2000 16:04:40 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu (Aaron J.
> Dinkin) said:
>
> >In article <O50uOYXpxtT62P...@4ax.com>,
> >malgran...@bigfoot.com wrote:
>
> >> On Fri, 26 May 2000 04:13:24 -0400, Richard Fontana
> >> <re...@columbia.edu> said:
>
> >> >On Thu, 25 May 2000, Pat Meadows wrote:
>
> >> >> On Thu, 25 May 2000 15:27:07 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu
> >> >> (Aaron J. Dinkin) wrote:
>
> >> >> >In article <392d6920....@news.nikoma.de>, nospam...@gmx.li
> >> >> >(Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton) wrote:
>
> >> >> >> On Wed, 24 May 2000 03:10:52 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu (Aaron J.
> >> >> >> Dinkin) wrote:
>
> >> >> >> > Yes, the same is true of me. Therefore Bob and I would be the wrong
> >> >> >> > people to answer that question, because we can legitimately say
> >> >> >> > that we don't know whether "DOS" is pronounced with "short o" or
> >> >> >> > "aw".
<snip>
> >> >> >> > In fact, I had no idea that "loss", "toss", and so on were
> >> >> >> > pronounced with "aw", which is the fact that motivated Richard's
> >> >> >> > question. Is this true in all dialects, or only in some?
>
> I pronounce 'loss' and 'toss' with the vowel of 'aw', and my
> pronunciation of 'aw' may be slightly different from my vowel in
> 'hot'. But it's not different enough that I would want to use
> different IPA symbols for the two.
I trust you don't consider them different phonemes?
> Suppose I did count myself among those who use different vowels in
> 'cot' and 'law'. Unless you know what those vowels are, what good
> does it do for me to tell you that? For all you know, my vowels might
> be |A| and |a|, and my input would have little bearing on what you all
> are trying so futilely to discuss.
Why do you say that? Your input would be exactly what we're discussing. We
are not - at least, I'm not - discussing what specific vowels people use in
these classes of words; we're talking about the distribution and patterning
of the distinctions between vowels.
> >> _Random House Webster's Unabridged_ has two pronunciations, using the
> >> same two vowels, for each of 'boss', 'loss', 'lost', 'cost', 'Ross',
> >> 'ross', 'Moss', and 'moss'.
>
> >> I've avoided saying what the two vowels are, because the second vowel
> >> they give is not the same as the vowel in 'father'.
>
> >Is the first one?
>
> No. The first one is the vowel in 'law'. The second one is one they
> represent by lowercase 'o' with no diacritic. I have no idea what
> sound they intend to represent by it.
What's their paradigmatic example of that vowel? If their pronunciation key
defines that symbol as representing the vowel in "pot", then surely you
know how to pronounce "pot" - that's the vowel they intend. There's no
reason for them to indicate a specific sound; if they did, their
transcriptions would only be applicable to a very restricted subclass of
dialects.
> In terms of the present discussion, this means that I have no idea what
> distinction they are trying to express between the two pronunciations, just as
> you really don't really know what distinction is being referred to by the
> people in your discussion, or how great the distinction is.
We aren't discussing _what_ the distinctions are; we're talking about the
fact of distinctions. Someone could pronounce "short o" as [O] and "aw" as
[aU] and it wouldn't make any difference to what we're actually talking
about, which is whether they use "aw" or "short o" in "toss".
> >That is, is either of the vowels they give the same as
> >the one in "father"? (This is not an absurd question: Merriam-Webster gives
> >two vowels for "toss", one of which is the same as in "father";
>
> Yes, I noticed that. Since I've discovered that Merriam-Webster
> equate their pronunciation symbols with IPA symbols, I now know that
> the two vowels they show in 'toss' are |O| and |A|.
Well then, they're wrong. In my dialect, "toss" has something more like
[A.] than [O] or [A]. Apparently I have to take their pronunciation
transcriptions with a grain or two of salt; they're aiming to demonstrate a
different dialect.
> >If you use a symbol for the vowel that means nothing but "the same vowel that
> >is in 'taught'", it becomes correct for everyone.
>
> But if you then try to discuss pronunciations in terms of dialects
> that make distinctions and dialects that don't, no one really knows
> what anyone else is talking about. Some could be thinking of
> vanishingly small distinctions while others could be thinking of large
> distinctions.
It's true that that is a danger. I hope people only mention distinctions
that are actually phonemic, but there's no way to be certain of that. For
instance, I don't mention that my vowel in "law" is somewhat longer than my
vowel in "caught", since that difference is nonphonemic - it is only with
effort that I am conscious of the difference, and in my linguistic
intuition they are "the same sound". But you're right that there's no
guarantee that everyone else in the discussion is limiting themselves to
phonemic differences.
However, I think there's not too much danger in that - largely because,
pretty much by definition, people tend not to be conscious of nonphonemic
differences. And in discussing phonemic patterns, it is much easier to say
"aw" than "New York and British [O], New England and Midwest [A.], and
Western [A]."
> The absurdity of using words to define pronunciation symbols is most
> strikingly illustrated in the _Chambers Dictionary_, where we are told
> that a certain symbol represents the vowel in 'name, aid, rein, tare,
> wear, hair, heir, fairy'. I commented on this in AUE sometime ago,
> and no one in England said that they pronounced all of those words
> with the same vowel. Furthermore, the version of RP supported by _The
> New Shorter Oxford_ doesn't have the same vowel in all of them. For
> example, it has |hE:| for 'hair' and |neIm| for 'name'.
Then the fault is with Chambers for using a single symbol to transcribe
more than one phoneme, or equivalently using words with different vowels as
paradigms for the same symbol. (The fault is mitigated if which of the
vowels is called for is predictable from context; I'm not familiar enough
with Chambers to know whether that's the case. But in any case, it's far
from ideal.) I'm not saying that nonphonetic pronunciation schemes are
automatically perfect; just that in general they're more appropriate for
English.
> >> >The traditional working-class New York accents are marked by the unusual
> >> >vowel that is chosen for "aw", but not by the use of "aw" itself, in the
> >> >classes of words you're referring to.
>
> >> Here the absurdity of using the phrase 'the "aw" sound'
>
> >No one used the phrase "the 'aw' sound" except you. We are not identifying
> >the generalized "aw" with a specific sound.
>
> Pat Meadows explicitly used the phrase 'the "aw" sound', thereby
> refuting Aaron Dinkin's assertion that no one except me uses it, when
> he said:
>
> | The "aw" sound is also there when I pronounce "coffee" and "dog."
All right, I suppose he did. However, the context makes it clear that he
was not intending to claim that there is a unique "'aw' sound" that exists
outside of dialects; he was just referring to the sound that corresponds to
"aw" in his own dialect.
> Richard Fontana used the phrase 'the "aw"' in a way that showed
> clearly that he associated it with a particular sound when he said:
>
> | I strongly suspect that all US dialects that distinguish "tot" and
> | "taught" use the "aw" in words like "toss".
>
> Otherwise he shouldn't have said 'use the "aw" in words like "toss"'
> but should have said 'use the vowel of "taught" in words like "toss"'.
"Aw" _is_, by definition (at least in the terminology we've been using in
this discussion), the vowel of "taught". "'Aw'" takes a lot less time to
write than "the vowel of 'taught'".
> >> is illustrated by the fact that in a single sentence reference is made to
> >> '"aw" itself' and the 'the unusual vowel that is chose for "aw"' in certain
> >> New York accents. Isn't the contradiction obvious? There's no such
> >> thing as 'the "aw" itself'.
>
> >Again, no one said "the 'aw' itself". What Richard wrote was "the use of
> >'aw' itself".
>
> No significant difference. The phrase 'the use of "aw" itself'
> implies that 'aw' stands for some sound that is different from the
> 'unusual vowel that is chose[n] for "aw"' in certain New York accents.
Not at all. "The use of 'aw' itself" means neither more nor less than "the
use of the same vowel as 'taught' itself". ("Itself" goes with "use", by
the way, not "'aw'".)
> It therefore clearly implies that Richard has some certain sound in
> mind when he speaks of 'aw'. Note that he didn't say 'the use of *my*
> "aw"', so he was thinking of some general pronunciation represented by
> 'aw' that was different from the vowel chosen for 'aw' in certain New
> York accents.
I don't think he was necessarily referring to any "general pronunciation
represented by 'aw'" at all. He said that traditional New York accents are
typical in that they use "aw" in a certain class of words; this means that
they use the same vowel in that class of words as in "taught". He also said
that these accents are atypical in what particular vowel phone they use for
"aw".
> What Richard really said was:
>
> | The traditional working-class New York accents are marked by the
> | unusual vowel that is chosen for "aw", but not by the use of "aw"
> | itself, in the classes of words you're referring to.
>
> If he's not thinking of a certain sound that he associates with 'aw',
> what sense would it make to speak of 'the unusual vowel that is chosen
> for "aw"' in certain New York accents? By using the word 'unusual' he
> implies that his pronunciation is usual.
If he _were_ thinking of a certain sound that he associated with "aw", what
sense would it make to speak of "the unusual vowel that is chosen for 'aw'"
in certain New York accents? "The unusual vowel that is chosen for 'aw'"
means no more and no less than that these accents have an unusual vowel
phone in words of the "taught" class.
> >To paraphrase what Richard said: Traditional New York working-class accents
> >are not unusual in using the same vowel in these classes of words as in
> >"taught", "law", and so on. They are unusual in their choice of the
> >specific vowel used in such words.
>
> Yes indeed. Like I said. He's thinking of some pronunciation of 'aw'
> that's not unusual. And everyone else is supposed to understand what
> sound he has in mind. Unless he uses IPA or provides a sound file on
> some Web site, no one really knows.
That was entirely incidental to the point we were discussing. He could, I
agree, have helpfully said something like "...the unusual vowel, [O:@],
that is chosen for 'aw' (other American dialects tend to use [O] or [A.])"
but that was an aside comment to the main point of the discussion.
> It's a meaningless question to ask what words have the same vowel as
> 'aw' unless you find some way to describe the degree of difference of
> that vowel from other vowels. ASCII IPA gives us a way to make the
> degree of difference much more specific.
I disagree. What I'm interested is what native speakers intuitively think
of as "the same vowel".
> >> Why can't people stick to ASCII IPA, where each symbol can be
> >> associated with a sound by listening to the sounds from the
> >> International Phonetic Association or the University of Lausanne?
>
> >We don't care about associating "aw" and "short o" with specific sounds;
> >indeed, they have different sounds in different dialects. Using ASCII IPA
> >would only obfuscate the main point of the discussion.
>
> Far from obfuscating it, it would turn it into a useful discussion,
I'm sorry you don't think our topic of discussion is useful; you're not
obligated to participate in it.
Richard Fontana
[...]
> I don't distinguish 'tot' from 'taught', but I'm familiar with the
> pronunciations of some people who do. I would have thought that I
> knew about what you mean by 'aw-class' if I hadn't listened to your
> pronunciation of 'caught' in 'Bother, father caught hot coffee in the
> car park.'
>
> I made a sound file interleaving a greatly extended version of your
> pronunciation of 'caught' with the IPA renditions of cardinal vowels
> 4, 5, and 13 (|a|, |A|, and |A.|). As you may remember, you can
> listen to it at
>
> <http://go.to/aue
> => Current AUE FAQ Supplement
> => R Fontana sound comparisons (under 'Speech examples')
> => <rf_caught_and_cards_4_5_13_8_bit.wav>'
>
> From that sound file I find that your pronunciation of 'caught' is
> quite close to |A|, certainly closer than it is to |a| or |A.|.
I agree with this. (I've noted elsewhere that when I say "caught" or
other aw-class words very slowly -- unnaturally slowly -- I round my
lips, and I regard this as a sort of fossilized phonetic feature.)
It takes some effort for me to hear the difference between the cardinal
[A] and the cardinal [A.], which is probably significant.
> I
> think it's not at all close to |O| and therefore nothing like what I
> would think you meant by '"aw" class'.
In my case the aw-class words are pronounced with |A|. In dialects
different from mine which nonetheless have distinct ah and aw-classes,
|O|, |A.| or some other vowel might be used. I believe that
some dictionaries and texts on American dialects have used IPA |O| in the
way that I'm using "aw" without really meaning to suggest that |O| is
the standard American vowel used for "aw". While some American dialects
may use |O| for the aw-class, I believe, just from everything that I hear,
that |A| and |A.| must be far more common. It was my confusion over this
use of |O| that really got me interested in this subject to begin with.
> I'll plan to extend the file, interleaving in addition with |O| and
> upside-down 'a'.
I look forward to hearing that.
RF
Bob Cunningham
<bdon...@wightman.net> said:
>Craig Faris wrote:
>> [...]
>> My brother, who is in grade three, asked me a very interesting
>> question--what the | sign is for. Do any of you know what it was/is used
>> for, besides for piping DOS commands? [...]
>In many computer languages, it also means the logical "or".
>For example, a text filter may read "free & (cable | descram*)"
The '|' is used by the _Dictionary of American Regional English_
(DARE) to avoid choosing between '/' and '[]' when representing
pronunciations using IPA symbols.
Following the lead of DARE, I sometimes use '|'s to enclose ASCII IPA
transcriptions, mostly to avoid discussions of phonemic versus
phonetic representations. I think phonemics has little relevance to
AUE, where pronunciation discussions are nearly always about how
people pronounce words, not about how different sounds can be used to
produce different meanings.
Some people pronounce 'saw' |sO| and some people pronounce it |sA|,
but this isn't a matter of phonemics, even though |O| and |A| can be
shown to be different phonemes in some dialects, if anyone is
interested in doing so. I'm not especially.
But since I've brought it up, I guess I could show that they're
different phonemes in some dialects by citing the pronunciations in
those dialects of 'sought' and 'sot' (|sOt| and |sAt|). I could show
that they're phonemically different in my idiolect, but not with those
two words. I never use |O| unless it's followed by my rhotic 'r', so
I would have to use something like 'card' and 'cord' (|kArd| and
|kOrd|). However, I don't see what all of this has to do with
discussions of how people pronounce words, which is what we mostly are
doing whenever we discuss pronunciation.
By the way, the pronunciations |sOt| and |sAt| for 'sought' and 'sot'
are the ones given in the _Merriam-Webster Collegiate_. In their
guide to pronunciation they equate their 'a with dieresis' with the
IPA symbol 'script a', which is equivalent to ASCII IPA |A|, and they
equate their 'o with dot over' to IPA 'open o', which is equivalent to
ASCII IPA |O|.
Bob Cunningham
<kre...@fas.harvard.edu> said:
>Aaron J. Dinkin <din...@fas.harvard.edu> spewed forth:
>> Hmm... from a class I took on the dialects of the English language, I
>> understand that [A.] is actually the more common American "taught" vowel,
>> though [A] is found also.
>I find that very interesting considering 1) he never said that when I took the
>class,
Aha!
> and 2) you have yet to show me an American who does use that vowel.
I invite any American who uses that vowel to make a sound recording
and send it to me so I can install it at the AUE Web site. Before I
install it, though, I will analyze it carefully to make sure I agree
that the speaker is using |A.|.
Please use 'Bother, father caught hot coffee in the carport' ('port',
not 'park') for your recording, and before you make your recording
please read the comments on making sound files at:
http://go.to/aue
=> Current AUE FAQ Supplement
=> Audio recording technique - Some suggestions
It's really easy to make a bad recording. This has been demonstrated
more than once. It takes considerable care and attention to details
to make a good recording.
Until I hear the sound file and agree that the fully rounded |A.| is
being used by a native American speaker, I will continue to believe
that no American uses it. My confidence in making that assertion is
strengthened by observing that in the _Merriam-Webster Collegiate_
guide to pronunciation, which gives an IPA equivalent for each
pronunciation symbol they use, there is no mention of |A.| (IPA
180-degree-rotated script 'a').
Note that I'm not saying no American sincerely believes he or she uses
|A.|.
I have little doubt that |A| and |O| are the vowels most commonly used
in the pronunciation of 'taught'. I don't know which is more common.
Dictionaries tend to give only |O|, but this may be only because the
lexicographers are biased by their own regional dialects.
Richard Fontana
> On 24 May 2000 17:44:08 GMT, Benjamin Krefetz
> <kre...@fas.harvard.edu> said:
>
> >Aaron J. Dinkin <din...@fas.harvard.edu> spewed forth:
>
> >> Hmm... from a class I took on the dialects of the English language, I
> >> understand that [A.] is actually the more common American "taught" vowel,
> >> though [A] is found also.
>
> >I find that very interesting considering 1) he never said that when I took the
> >class,
>
> Aha!
>
> > and 2) you have yet to show me an American who does use that vowel.
>
> I invite any American who uses that vowel to make a sound recording
> and send it to me so I can install it at the AUE Web site. Before I
> install it, though, I will analyze it carefully to make sure I agree
> that the speaker is using |A.|.
I think my "slow speech taught" vowel is either |A.| or something
like |A| moving towards |A.|. My ordinary speed "taught", as you know,
seems to be |A|. Even in ordinary speed speech my "pity sound" is
probably |A.:| rather than |A:|, but you could argue that that's not a
true word.
> Please use 'Bother, father caught hot coffee in the carport' ('port',
> not 'park') for your recording, and before you make your recording
> please read the comments on making sound files at:
>
> http://go.to/aue
> => Current AUE FAQ Supplement
> => Audio recording technique - Some suggestions
>
> It's really easy to make a bad recording. This has been demonstrated
> more than once. It takes considerable care and attention to details
> to make a good recording.
>
> Until I hear the sound file and agree that the fully rounded |A.| is
> being used by a native American speaker, I will continue to believe
> that no American uses it. My confidence in making that assertion is
> strengthened by observing that in the _Merriam-Webster Collegiate_
> guide to pronunciation, which gives an IPA equivalent for each
> pronunciation symbol they use, there is no mention of |A.| (IPA
> 180-degree-rotated script 'a').
The chapter on pronunciation in DARE, which employed IPA symbols, asserted
that |A.| was used in some American dialects -- I think they mentioned
parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania. This to me is quite believable even if I
were to share the general skepticism about the commonness of |A.| in
American speech. But I actually do believe that |A.| must be far more
common than |O| for aw-class words, though |A| may now be more common
than |A.|. Either the dictionaries emphasizing |O| were always wrong, or
a vowel shift has occurred too recently for dictionaries to recognize it.
>
> Note that I'm not saying no American sincerely believes he or she uses
> |A.|.
I can try to make a recording of unnaturally slow "Bother father caught
hot coffee in the carport" which I believe will demonstrate that I use
|A.| in that situation in "caught" and "coffee", but I'm not entirely sure
if this would be valuable given that in ordinary-paced speech the
lip-rounding seems to vanish. As I think I mentioned, my mother's
pronunciation of words in the aw-class seems to involve a vowel that is
slightly more rounded than mine, speaking of regularly-paced speech.
Arguably it's not a real word, but the "pity sound" seems to involve |A.|
for me, at least sometimes. Incidentally, I think Aaron or someone from
New England once explained that the refreshment sound and the pity sound
were distinct in their speech, but there the vowel /a/ was available for
the refreshment sound. Now, as for the non-New England tot==taught
community, I assume that the ordinary words "ah" and "awe" are homophonic,
but how about the refreshment or "I understand" "ah" interjections vs.
the "pity sound", i.e., "Ahh!" vs. "Awww!"? Are these interjections
really homophonic, distinguished only by context, in places like
California (to pick one populous place in the tot==taught camp)?
I also believe that many Boston-accented persons use |A.|, or, more
specifically, the diphthong |A.@| for many words that are in my ah-class.
In order for me to reproduce the sound I hear from such speakers I have to
round my lips considerably for the initial vowel of this diphthong. Of
course when you try to render an accent other than your own, even when
you're good at it (as I think I am) you often end up producing something
exaggerated.
RF
Bob Cunningham
<bat...@maltedmedia.com> said:
[ . . . ]
>It may be something Bob Cunningham (IIRC) has mentioned about the
>flattening of distinction between vowel sounds in California. Since so
>much of the entertainment comes from there and spreads into kids' speech
>("can you say 'doh!'"), I suspect I may be hearing -- and adopting(!) --
>the artifacts of that.
I don't like being quoted as referring to vowel sounds in California.
I don't think California vowels are much different from that of most
of the western United States. I have commented that my pronunciations
of 'marry', 'merry', and 'Mary' use the same vowel and I use the same
vowel in 'sought' and 'sot', but I didn't learn to speak in California
exclusively. I first learned to speak in Utah, and spent three of my
formative years in Seattle.
Furthermore, I don't agree with the allusions that crop up in AUE now
and then about the entertainment industry being Californian and
therefore imparting California speech to the rest of the world. Would
anyone like to estimate what portion of actors and actresses who
perform in California productions are originally from California? I
suspect the portion is quite small.
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz
>
> I don't like being quoted as referring to vowel sounds in California.
Then IDRC.
O&O,
Dennis
Donna Richoux
> Furthermore, I don't agree with the allusions that crop up in AUE now
> and then about the entertainment industry being Californian and
> therefore imparting California speech to the rest of the world. Would
> anyone like to estimate what portion of actors and actresses who
> perform in California productions are originally from California? I
> suspect the portion is quite small.
I just looked at the World Almanac of 1993 (the latest I have). It lists
birthplaces of living "Entertainment Personalities" -- actors,
actresses, and others. Of the first 288 entries, 29 were born in
California. Since CA has 10% of the country's population, that is right
on target and supports your position.
I'm trying to think what might skew this count. The people listed are
not necessarily Hollywood/California performers, of course. This list
would also be noteworthy or stars as opposed to run-of-the-mill union
members. Also, a list with deceased stars would have to skew the numbers
against California, since the boom there was postwar.
If someone wants to keep counting, they may. I wonder if the Internet
Movie Database could be coaxed to yield such a list. On my machine it is
agonizingly slow.
--
Best --- Donna Richoux
Richard Fontana
[...]
> Furthermore, I don't agree with the allusions that crop up in AUE now
> and then about the entertainment industry being Californian and
> therefore imparting California speech to the rest of the world. Would
> anyone like to estimate what portion of actors and actresses who
> perform in California productions are originally from California? I
> suspect the portion is quite small.
I also suspect this. Well, actually, California being such a populous
state, I think now Californians must be well-represented in the
entertainment industry, but the general point stands. I think that it may
be that the entertainment industry has contributed to the ascendancy of
one sort of "General American" accent, but it isn't especially native to
California, though it's more akin to Californian speech than it is to
other regional varieties of American English. But one could say that
Cockney is more akin to RP than Yorkshire or Scottish.
RF
Mark Brader
> > Would anyone like to estimate what portion of actors and actresses
> > who perform in California productions are originally from California?
> > I suspect the portion is quite small.
Donna Richoux writes:
> If someone wants to keep counting, they may. I wonder if the Internet
> Movie Database could be coaxed to yield such a list.
By downloading their raw biographical data file (over 50 megabytes)
and selecting the appropriate lines, one can get birth information
(date and/or place) for close to 60,000 people. I haven't attempted
to tabulate how many of these have a birthplace shown. But anyway,
they would include many who are not actors, and many who generally
work elsewhere than California. I can think of no way to construct
a list of "actors and actresses who perform in California productions"
without a lot of work.
I did think of a way to easily construct a list of people who have
been nominated for an Oscar in any of the four acting categories,
a classification somewhat correlated with working in California.
Currently there are 751 of them, and the IMDB has a place of birth
for 749. [The other two are Colette Marchand, nominee for Moulin
Rouge (1952), and Rupert Crosse, nominee for The Reivers (1969).]
Incidentally, the supporting role categories contribute more people
to the list than the leading role categories, even though they haven't
been around quite as long. Best Actor and Best Actress both tend to
get a lot of repeat nominees.
Here are statistics on the 749 birthplaces:
512 USA
150 New York
71 California
35 Illinois
24 Massachusetts
23 Pennsylvania
17 Texas
16 Ohio
16 New Jersey
160 (other)
115 UK
100 England
7 Scotland
6 Wales
2 Northern Ireland
20 Canada
10 Ontario
3 Quebec
3 British Columbia
4 (other)
12 Ireland
10 Austria
10 France
10 Italy
7 Australia
6 Japan
47 (others)
Other places represented include Cambodia, Cuba, Egypt, Poland, and Tahiti.
--
Mark Brader | "Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. The rest of the
Toronto | time you go by the Book, which is mostly a collection
m...@vex.net | of nitwit ideas that worked. -- Niven & Pournelle
My text in this article is in the public domain.
mag...@rahul.net
Richoux) wrote:
>Bob Cunningham <malgran...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>
>> Furthermore, I don't agree with the allusions that crop up in AUE now
>> and then about the entertainment industry being Californian and
>> therefore imparting California speech to the rest of the world. Would
>> anyone like to estimate what portion of actors and actresses who
>> perform in California productions are originally from California? I
>> suspect the portion is quite small.
>
>I just looked at the World Almanac of 1993 (the latest I have). It lists
>birthplaces of living "Entertainment Personalities" -- actors,
>actresses, and others. Of the first 288 entries, 29 were born in
>California. Since CA has 10% of the country's population, that is right
>on target and supports your position.
>
>I'm trying to think what might skew this count. The people listed are
>not necessarily Hollywood/California performers, of course. This list
>would also be noteworthy or stars as opposed to run-of-the-mill union
>members. Also, a list with deceased stars would have to skew the numbers
>against California, since the boom there was postwar.
>
>If someone wants to keep counting, they may. I wonder if the Internet
>Movie Database could be coaxed to yield such a list. On my machine it is
>agonizingly slow.
I've been watching A&E's "Biography" shows recently. A common
refrain is how someone moved to Hollywood to try to get into the
entertainment industry.
One of the things they would do to break in to the entertainment
industry is to take acting lessons, and one of the things
emphasized in acting lessons was how to lose a hick accent. So
they replaced their native accent with a California accent.
To whit, there are a lot of Actors who are from Canada, but you
wouldn't know it when they say "about". They may have originally
had a Canadian accent, but to get ahead in Hollywood they adopted
a California accent.
California might not be the literal birthplace of the Actors, but
it is the birthplace of most of the TV shows and movies seen on
TV and in theaters in the US today.
jc
Richard Fontana
> I've been watching A&E's "Biography" shows recently. A common
> refrain is how someone moved to Hollywood to try to get into the
> entertainment industry.
>
> One of the things they would do to break in to the entertainment
> industry is to take acting lessons, and one of the things
> emphasized in acting lessons was how to lose a hick accent. So
> they replaced their native accent with a California accent.
That's a big leap; you're assuming that the accent that was deemed
desirable to adopt was "Californian" simply because Hollywood was in
California. This may depend on what point in time you're talking about.
If you're talking about the 1930s-1950s era of Hollywood
movies, this was at a time when Los Angeles was the focus of a big wave
of migration from the eastern parts of the country and when the
cultural heart of the country was more clearly somewhere in the East.
The prevailing standards of desirable pronunciation in southern California
must have been in considerable flux. Just from watching old Hollywood
movies it's pretty clear that the accent adopted by most actors was about
as far from western US dialects in it characteristics as possible and
probably bore a closer relationship to favored Eastern dialects.
If this sort of accent was unique to Hollywood it could be
called a kind of "California accent", but I suspect
that native Californians (certainly those from rural areas) were as likely
to have undesirable "hick accents" as native midwesterners or whereever
the other actors tended to come from. This all must have changed at some
point, but I think what happened was that many Californians came to adopt
a national standard of pronunciation that was not native to that state,
much as people in other regions did.
RF
Bob Cunningham
>I've been watching A&E's "Biography" shows recently. A common
>refrain is how someone moved to Hollywood to try to get into the
>entertainment industry.
>One of the things they would do to break in to the entertainment
>industry is to take acting lessons, and one of the things
>emphasized in acting lessons was how to lose a hick accent. So
>they replaced their native accent with a California accent.
>To whit, there are a lot of Actors who are from Canada, but you
>wouldn't know it when they say "about". They may have originally
>had a Canadian accent, but to get ahead in Hollywood they adopted
>a California accent.
>California might not be the literal birthplace of the Actors, but
>it is the birthplace of most of the TV shows and movies seen on
>TV and in theaters in the US today.
I haven't watched all of the A. & E. Biography shows, but I've watched
quite a few, and I don't remember a single case where it was brought
out that the biographee took speech lessons.
Anyway, if I were an aspiring performer and if I wanted to take speech
lessons, I think I would be quite careful to choose a coach or a
school that would assure me that I would not be exchanging one
regional accent for another.
I suppose there may be institutions that teach pronunciation, but if
there are I think it's safe to assume that they strive to hire coaches
who can speak with what their clients consider a preferred accent.
I'd be surprised to learn that the clients prefer the speech of
Southern Californians.
Benjamin Krefetz
>>Aaron J. Dinkin <din...@fas.harvard.edu> spewed forth:
>>> Hmm... from a class I took on the dialects of the English language, I
>>> understand that [A.] is actually the more common American "taught" vowel,
>>> though [A] is found also.
>>I find that very interesting considering 1) he never said that when I took the
>>class,
Okay. Just to follow up on this, I asked the professor from the course in
question about these vowels, demonstrating my (homophonic) pronunciations of
"caught" and "cot" to him. (N.b.: These pronunciations are the same as Aaron's
pronunciations.) He said it was definitely too round to be considered [A] but
not as round as the RP [A.]. However, he felt it was closer to [A.] than to
[A] and that the former should therefore be used in transcription but with a
note to indicate that it's not as round as the RP [A.].
Incidentally, does anyone know the etymology of "Received Pronunciation"? I
asked the aforementioned professor, and he didn't know.
Ben
Richard Fontana
> So Bob Cunningham was all like:
> > On 24 May 2000 17:44:08 GMT, Benjamin Krefetz
> > <kre...@fas.harvard.edu> said:
>
> >>Aaron J. Dinkin <din...@fas.harvard.edu> spewed forth:
>
> >>> Hmm... from a class I took on the dialects of the English language, I
> >>> understand that [A.] is actually the more common American "taught" vowel,
> >>> though [A] is found also.
[...]
> Okay. Just to follow up on this, I asked the professor from the course in
> question about these vowels, demonstrating my (homophonic) pronunciations of
> "caught" and "cot" to him. (N.b.: These pronunciations are the same as Aaron's
> pronunciations.) He said it was definitely too round to be considered [A] but
> not as round as the RP [A.]. However, he felt it was closer to [A.] than to
> [A] and that the former should therefore be used in transcription but with a
> note to indicate that it's not as round as the RP [A.].
That's very useful, since I have a good sense of what the eastern New
England cot/caught vowel is like.
But you didn't ask him about which vowel is most common for "taught" in
the US, did you? We really have to resolve this [O] business once and for
all.
RF
Aaron J. Dinkin
<kre...@fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> Incidentally, does anyone know the etymology of "Received Pronunciation"? I
> asked the aforementioned professor, and he didn't know.
I'm not sure what you mean by the question: I could trace "received" back
to Latin "capere" and "pronunciation" to Latin "nuntius", but I don't think
that's what you want to know....
As far as I can tell, it's called "received pronunciation" because it's not
necessarily anyone's native dialect, but if you go to the right schools,
you'll come out speaking it - therefore, you've received it. Anyone know
better?
Michael Cargal
Sounds like a play on "received wisdom," meaning wisdom coming
straight from God.
--
Michael Cargal mhca...@home.com
billyho49
>Incidentally, does anyone know the etymology of "Received
Pronunciation"? >
John Davies has nailed it.
The Australian Pocket Oxford 1976 gives RP as 'the educated
speech of southern England'.
In moving from OZ to NZ I've had to modify my pronunciation of
certain words, for instance in 'dance' from a [as in cat] to a
[as in cart].
[Sorry I have not got my head around IPA yet].
cheers bill
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