ah/ awe

[Jonathan Lighter]

Tom, the school systems of several nations have been trying for a century and a half to keep people from saying "ain't."  With little success.

  In the second grade in NYC, a substitute teacher tried to get us to pronounce the vowel identically (as "ah") in all these words:

  Frog, Hog, Log, Smog, Fog, Dog.

  She claimed it only made sense and, apparently, would help build character. We thought she was a crank. Eventualy she gave up. For me, they're all "ah" except for "dawg."  In many other places they're all "aw" or something similar.

  JL

Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Beverly Flanigan
Subject: Re: ah/ awe
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Give it up, Tom--it won't work! The scholarly research by linguists on all
this is very clear and has been cited by many of us.

However, I might use your poem as a diagnostic test, if I may, to see who
merges and in which words; for the same speaker, some of these words may go
to the "ah" sound and others may not. For example, in another test I use,
"balk" may have 'aw' while "balm" has 'ah', for the same speaker (myself
included). Go figure.

Beverly Flanigan


At 01:00 PM 10/1/2006, you wrote:
>>From: David Bergdahl
>>On 9/30/06, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>> >
>> > To my ears it's not a merger between "ah" and "awe" it's a substitution
>>of
>> > "ah" for "awe" and a dropping of the "awe" phoneme altogether.
>>
>>In my experience teaching in an area with lots of low-back merger speakers,
>> > if you question them directly they will say the "ah" phoneme is the
>> > underlying one and the "aw" is the innovation (the opposite of the
>>history).
>> >
>>-db
>
>We should have them listen to some old movies. Here's a small poem for
>"awe" practice.
>tz
>
>The Haughty Fawn
>By Tom Zurinskas
>Many examples of the sound of "awe" and no instances of "ah"
>
>In the fall, a small fawn paused near the wall.
>We stood in awe as we saw the marauder
>Paw and gnaw on some frosty long straws undaunted.
>We all talked about plausible thoughts
>That we ought to halt its audacious jaws,
>Because it's gnawing might cost us the lawn.
>So we tossed a ball at the naughty fawn to run it off,
>Although it's against the law to loft a ball at a fawn.
>And we prawled on the lawn to avoid getting caught.
>Still it's jaws wouldn't stall in mauling the lawn.
>So we all stood tall and called at the creature raw
>But it scoffed our squall as if knowing the law
>And staunchly taunted our raucous throng.
>Then without balking at our naughty fraud
>It yawned and jauntily stalked away.
>No tawdry pawn this haughty fawn.
>
>
>
>
>tz
>
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