hawk/hock

[Catherine Aman]

pop or soda?

> ----------
> From:         James A. Landau
> Reply To:     American Dialect Society
> Sent:         Thursday, July 18, 2002 12:17 PM
> To:   ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:      Re: hawk/hock
>
> In a message dated 7/18/02 11:41:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM writes:
>
> >  [You didn't mention
> >  "warsh" (for "wash"), which I had until I consciously suppressed it
> >  sometime in my teens.  That /ar/ is a little more like "warm" than
> "arm."]
>
>
> Yes, I still say /warsh/ and /warshingt'n/.  My parents were born and
> raised
> in Louisville, Ky.  My grandparents are from Louisville, New York, and
> Galicia (then part of Austria-Hungary).
>
> I think you are right about my /ar/, and specifically the /ar/ or "harsh",
> as
> being more like "warm" than "arm".  As best I can tell (I have NO training
> in
> phonetics), my /ar/ in "arm" is much, uh, backer than my /ar/ in "harsh".
> But that still leaves the question of why, unlike the M-W 10th Collegiate,
> I
> pronounce "mop" and "mar" with noticeably different vowels.  If I talk
> about
> the Battle of the Marne (in France), I say /mahrn/, but if I mar the
> finish
> on my desk, it is definitely /mawr/, close if not identical to my /aw/ of
> "warm".
>
>       Still confused,
>
>       Jim Landau
>
>