Staunton, VA

[David Bergdahl]

I'm sure there are pockets of every kind: the direction of movement for
"short o" is toward the unround variant, though, despite the hold-outs.
Denis Preston wrote "Be careful of the "Midwest" in your "continued
unrounding." Many Inland North areas (MI, IL, WI, etc...) which many
would call the Midwest, preserve the distinction (i.e., otto and auto
are quite distinct). The loss is also very recent in South Midlands
areas. I have it +50 but my little hillbilly relatives -30 don't."

In the 30+ yrs I've been in Athens I've noticed a real shift.  Initially
the vowel of {AU} and "short o before /f s th/ &c" words was very back
and short so that a positional contrast between low central {father} &
{cot} and low back {lost} & {caught}.  There was also a half- or
semi-round quality which made it difficult to determine if the vowel was
round or flat, especially since it was usually quite short (by contrast
to my open o's which are long, often diphthongal [UO]).  Now, however,
many of the students have more centralized values for both (or at least
not as tightly backed variants for the "previously round" {au} & {o}
variants.
-- db
___________________________________________________________
David Bergdahl                 einstein at frognet.net     tel: (740)
592-1617
                               home page:       http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl