grotty

[Dennis R. Preston]

Excellent point. For civilized Americans (who make the caugh-cot
distinction) the /a/ of at least many varieties of English English is
much backer and rounder and could very well be placed at the vowel of
"caught" rather than "cot."

For Northern Cities Shifters (you know who you are!) of course this
makes no difference since "cot" had already marched up to "cat"
(nearly) and "caught" has dropped down to "cot." What a world we live
in! Where are Peterson and Barney when we need them?

dInIs



>On Sat, 6 Jul 2002, Jonathon Green wrote:
>
>#I very much doubt that Ringo would have used _grody_ in the 1960s, though
>#his heavy Liverpudlian accent might well have distorted the double-'t into a
>#'d'. And despite the NDAS, the 'o' in _grotty_ was/is always short.
>
>But rounded in (most?) British dialects, including, if my memory serves,
>the dialogue in _A Hard Day's Night_. Many Americans might have mapped
>that onto their own /o/ rather than /a/ for "short o".
>
>-- Mark A. Mandel