the good old days, and that pesky letter "shee" (formerly "shch")

[Paul B. Gallagher]

John Dunn wrote:

> Ancient British Television Joke, circa 1965 (on the subject of non-rounded vowels):
> 
> Two passengers in an aeroplane;
> American passenger: Say, what do you do for a living?
> British passenger: I'm a clerk [cla:k].
> AP: No, be serious.
> BP: I am being serious.
> AP: All right, you're a clock [clak], you go tick-tock, tick-tock.
> 
> The position can be summed up as follows:
> sack is [sak] (for most speakers nowadays)
> sock is [sok], i.e. higher and with rounding
> pass is either [pass] or [pa:ss], depending on whether you come from north or south of the isogloss I mentioned in the off-list message (which runs across the middle of England)
> can't is [ca:nt] for most speakers in England, but [cant] occurs in some varieties.
> 
> There have been some significant shifts in standard British English pronunciation[s] over the last 50 years, due at least in part to social and geographical mobility.  The [a] in [sack] always existed in many varieties (including my own) and may even have predominated among non-RP speakers; the shift from [æ] to [a] in such words is, I suspect, helped by the fact that the rounded vowel in sock leaves a gap; it also allows for a clearer distinction between pairs such as sacks and sex (on which topic there is an even worse joke, but I will spare you that one).

Wow. 'T's all I can say. Wow.

Oh, and thanks for clarifying.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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