The Pierian spring

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 06:02 PM 7/19/2002 -0400, Jim Landau wrote:
>In a message dated 07/19/2002 4:09:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>flanigan at OHIOU.EDU writes:
>
> > BTW, as a native Minnesotan, I have the same three-way split in the test
> >  words that you do, assuming you have "color" with a wedge (or stressed
> >  schwa).  If you mean /U/, as in my Northern "pull," that's a different
> >  matter.  But our mixed use of symbols on this list IS a problem.
>
>Having no training in phonetics, I know better than to touch the Pierian
>spring of IPA.  That's why I have been giving rhymes, in hopes of not being
>ambiguous.
>
>For me the first syllable of "color" rhymes with cull, dull, gull, hull,
>lull, mull, null, sully, and skull.  If that doesn't help, then it is the
>vowel as in Hun, Khun, Kun, nun, run, sun, ton, won, and of course pun.
>Pronouncing "color" as /'cUl-'r/ (that is, with the /U/ of pull, wood, good,
>etc.) sounds very odd to my ears.
I assumed you meant "color" as in cull, dull, gull, etc.; I have this vowel
too (not so SE Ohio, where it usually rhymes with my Northern "collar").


>I really have no idea what the usual pronunciation of "wash" might be in
>Louisville, Kentucky.  Obvously my family or somebody I learned from said
>/warsh/ with a vowel somewhere near that of "arm".  Living here in the
>Northeast, I'm often asked where my Southern accent is.  I think I have faint
>traces of such, particullarly in the word "Southern", which I pronounce as
>/suth-'n/  (/u/ as in, well, color), dropping most or all of the /r/.  Now,
>if I drop a fair number of /r/s, why should I insert a superfluous /r/ in
>"wash"?
Intrusive /r/ here in SE Ohio would produce a vowel as in "warm," not "arm"
(as others noted too).