Boody

[David Bowie]

From:    "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
:somebody else wrote:

:: For what it's worth--for me, and I suspect many other speakers of
:: different regional varieties of AmEng, "boody" and "booty" (not to
:: mention "bootie") would be homonyms.

: At least near-homonyms. I'm ignorant of the fine points of the
: phonetics, but I recall Larry Trask making an objection to wholesale
: assignment of /d/ to an Am.Eng. intervocalic "t" sound (IIRC proposed
: for OED and used in MW3)...

And i agree with Larry Trask on this one, if for no other reason that
there's often a difference in the preceding vowel--note the classic example
of the short-a length distinction in many (most?) American English speakers'
pronunciations of 'ladder' and 'latter'.

For me, the word in the subject line is clearly 'booty' rather than 'boody'
*not* because of the quality of the consonant, but because of the quality of
the vowel preceding it (length, certainly, but something in my ear wants to
say there's a slight difference in the degree of rounding, as well, though i
may just be making that up from too much introspection).

<snip>

David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
    Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
    house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
    chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.