online accent quiz

[Michael H Covarrubias]

Quoting Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>:

> The caught/cot distinction
> won't go because it shouldn't.

This must mean that English lost the [a:]/[a] distinction because it should
have.  Was there also a requirement that led to the vowel shift?

> You may not care, but there are those
> that do.  Awe-droppers do the language
> a disservice, create unnecessary homonyms,
> thereby lessening intelligibility and ease
> of learning English.
> [...]

I doubt I could make a reasonable distinction between necessary and unnecessary
homonyms.

> I have no clue what dInIs is.
> SAMPA for Dennis?  Both vowels are
> short i? This does not happen in USA.
> You must be a Brit?
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL4+

Despite your apparent view of the supremacy of your dialect/idiolect the [I]
does indeed occur as a surface form for many speakers of American English.
Have you never heard someone pronounce "pen" [pIn]?  It's not a secret.  It's
not rare.  It's not wrong it's not evil and it won't ruin the language.

Michael Covarrubias

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   English Language & Linguistics
   Purdue University
   mcovarru at purdue.edu

   web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcovarru
  <http://wishydig.blogspot.com>

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