hoss

[Laurence Horn]

>On Sun, Aug 04, 2002 at 08:01:43PM -0500, Gordon, Matthew J. wrote:
>
>>  Could those of you with a phonemic distinction in the low
>>back vowels confirm that the vowel in 'hoss' (the derivative
>>of 'horse' made popular by Bonanza and Keith Jackson) is open
>>o (i.e., the same as 'bought' ) and not the vowel of 'hot'?
>
>Works for me; "hoss" rhymes with "sauce" as I say the word,
>and I'm not a cot/caught merger.
>
Me too.  I have a minimal pair between "hoss" [h)s, open o] (as in
the Bonanza/Keith Jackson) and "Hos" [has] (as in the abbreviation
for Jeff Hostetler, the backup quarterback who led the N. Y. Giants
to victory in the 1991 Super Bowl).  I know, however, that the
hypocoristic was created by someone who pronounced them as homonyms
(with the open o vowel I use in the former), and probably pronounced
"Hostetler" with an open o as well.

larry