free variation in pronunciation

[Thomas Paikeday]

I have not been following this thread very closely, so this comment is
based on the excerpt given below. Here goes.

I am a bit confused by phonetic variations, esp. when a syllable
boundary is involved, but it seems to me there's a question here of
whether "Me, my mother, and my siblings" are British or not. In other
words, the British pronunciation (LORE-rinse) or (LORE-inse, ?) seems to
have the same vowel in the first syllable as in "law" (variants
included, at least the way it is transcribed in IPA, as in J. C. Wells's
Pronouncing Dictionary). In most non-British pronunciations, I suppose
"law" has a more open and lower vowel than "LORE" does.

This may be neither here nor there. The problem I raise could be in the
dissociation of sounds and spellings.

T.M.P.

Mark Odegard wrote:
>
> I can offer my father's first name: Lawrence. He does the first syllable as
> a homophone of 'law' (LAW-rinse). Me, my mother, and my siblings
> preferentially do it the way Lord Olivier did his first name ('LORE-rinse').
>
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