aunt

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

Sure. The valence of the "British" pronunciation of "can't" propbably gives
the similar poronunciation of "aunt" that some folks have for it.

In a message dated 3/12/09 11:26:05 AM, bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU writes:


> On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 9:23 AM, <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > Add "aunt" to the list of words that sound pretentious to some folks with
> [a] or open o--which
> > are the normal unaffected pronunciations for many (rather than rhyming
> with "can't").
>
> But then again "can't", like "aunt", can take an affected-sounding [A]
> (script a), in the British style. Recall the big laffs in "Singin' In
> The Rain" when Lina Lamont, wrestling with her vocal training, finally
> succeeds in pronouncing "can't" as [kA:nt], but then still ends up
> saying "I cahn't stan' 'im [kA:nt st&n @m]." (IIRC.)
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>




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