Awesome, Awful ... Awe-striking?

[Tom Zurinskas]

I clicked on thefreedictionary.com to hear some words with the "awe" ~au phoneme in it.  That site has 3 vocalizations 1 USA, 2 UK, and 3 a speaker icon symbol next to the word.  Here's what I heard.

 

Awe

USA  ~aa  (with ~aa is as in "Saab") 

UK   ~oe  (with ~oe as in "toe" but pushed back in the throat)

icon  ~au  (with ~au as in "auger" - via icon below)

 

Auger

USA  ~aager

UK   ~oegu  (with ~u as in "sub", no ~r)

icon  ~auger

 

Awesome

USA   ~aasum  

UK     ~oesim   (with ~i as in "tip")

icon  ~ausoom  (with ~oo as in "wood)

 

Law

USA  ~laa

UK   ~loe'u  (like a diphthong, ~oe followed by ~u)

icon  ~lau

 

Small

USA  ~smaul

UK   ~smoel

icon  ~smaul

 

The ~au phoneme seems very unstable.  From this small sample one would think that "awe-to-ah" swapping were standard stuff in USA and "awe-to-oh" in the UK.  To me the icon says it best.



Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+ 
see truespel.com phonetic spelling


 
 > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Neal Whitman <nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET>
> Subject: Awesome, Awful ... Awe-striking?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> On Visual Thesaurus (for suscribers), a comparative history of both
> "awesome" and "awful":
> http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dictionary/2311/
> 
> On the blog, a tangential topic: What's with "awe-striking", the
> present-participial counterpart to "awe-struck"?
> http://literalminded.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/when-awe-strikes/
> 
> Neal
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

                                          
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