auto/Otto

[Paul Johnston]

Not unless you're Scottish.

Paul
----- Original Message -----
From: "Beverly Flanigan" <flanigan at OHIO.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 5:36 PM
Subject: Re: auto/Otto


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: auto/Otto
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
> 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
> >
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