auto/Otto

[Beverly Flanigan]

The issue here is the same ah/awe merger  we've been talking about for
weeks.  The writer says/hears "dawn" as "don" (both having the same low
back vowel [a] = 'ah') and therefore thinks of "don" = put on, wear but
misspells it as its homophone (for him) "dawn."  Clock and cloak are not a
problem!

At 04:30 PM 12/13/2006, you wrote:
>At 12/13/2006 11:01 AM, Charles Doyle wrote:
>>Just this minute I finished reading an undergraduate's final exam
>>paper in which this sentence appears:  "The Duke leaves to dawn the
>>cloak of a friar."  A carpetbagger in Georgia, obviously.
>
>Did the student mean to write "The Duke leaves at dawn by the clock
>of a friar"?
>
>Joel
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org