ERR; BUM

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Sunday, February 4, 2001 4:53 pm -0500 "D. Ezra Johnson"
<ezra_50 at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

> Regarding "err" -- does the American Heritage Dictionary really have it
> pronounced "air" as one of the pronunciations? I know some people have a
> merger here, but I would have thought the dictionaries would have the
> open e sound, as in the first syllable of "error".

To me, the first syllable of 'error' is pronounced the same as the word
'air' (difference in length, but not in vowel quality).

Lynne


M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
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