Will that be pop, soda or a soft drink?

[Alice Faber]

Steve Boatti wrote:
>In a message dated 3/15/03 10:57:17 AM, vidamorkunas at telus.net writes:
>
>
>>  Mr. Boberg says. Americans, he notes, keep female cattle in their living
>>  room furniture, pronouncing the word "cow-itch," where we rhyme the word
>>  with the shout you make when stubbing a toe -- ouch!
>>
>Huh? Does anyone really pronounce couch "cow-itch"?
>

This is the problem with using ordinary orthography to represent
phonetic details. I'd guess that the problem here is "Canadian
raising". The onset of the diphthong in "couch" would obviously be
higher for most Canadians than for most Americans. The spelling "cow"
is undoubtedly meant to convey--for a Canadian--the non-raised onset;
given that a voiceless coda conditions the raising, the disyllabic
rendering was used to preserve the non-raised onset. The newspaper
writer seems not to grasp that "couch" and "ouch" rhyme for Americans
also, even though we tend to use a different vowel nucleus in both
than do Canadians.

--
 =============================================================================
Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                                     fax (203) 865-8963