rawk (1987)

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 02:36 PM 2/24/2005, you wrote:
>At 10:55 AM -0600 2/24/05, Jim Parish wrote:
>>Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>>  The pronunciation spelling "rawk" for "rock" (music) came up recently on
>>>  the alt.usage.english newsgroup.  For speakers who haven't merged "cot"
>>>  and "caught", "rawk" suggests an exaggerated pronunciation that might be
>>>  associated with young male fans of hard rock (possibly also evoking "raw"
>>>  or "raucous").
>>
>>This spelling is also popular (AFAICT, more popular) for the verb "rock", as
>>in "You RAWK!", a rather vague but forceful expression of praise.
>Wonder if there's an influence from the "hawg" spelling (201,000
>google hits, mostly for Harleys and such).  Then there's "dawg" which
>I've always found curious, since that would be how I'd pronounce
>"dog" without any help.  (Sort of like "luv" or "wuz", or "wimmin".)
>At least in the "rawk" and "hawg" case the distinct spelling does
>index a distinct pronunciation.
>
>Larry

The "dawg" spelling is meant to indicate the infamous upglide we talked
about a few weeks ago, if I'm not mistaken ("hawg" may be too).  My "dog,"
and yours, has the open O/backward C (so does my "hog"), but this "dawg"
would be roughly [daUg].  I make the U a superscript for my students.

Here in SE Ohio, "rock" wouldn't have a full open O, nor would it have an
upglide; but the /a/ of our "rock" would be backed somewhat, to a turned
script 'a' (I can't do it on e-mail), roughly halfway between /a/ and open
O.  (We've talked about this a hundred times on the list too.)

It sounds as if the pop "rawk" is not this regional backing but more like
the NYC "chocolate" and "coffee" raised open O, am I right?  (These aren't
upglided, as Dennis pointed out.)  But I haven't heard the pronunciation,
so I'm speculating.

Beverly