old hat

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Mar 3, 2006, at 2:46 PM, Bethany K. Dumas wrote:

> On Fri, 3 Mar 2006, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>> Likewise, there are people who pronounce "your" as though it was
>> spelled
>> "you're" and who pronounce "you're" as though it was spelled "your."
>
> To the best of my knowledge, I have ALWAYS pronounced them the
> same. And I
> do not recall hearing others pronounce them differently.

that's my belief about my own pronunciation.  but... from two
american dictionaries:

NOAD2 has two pronunciations for both, with lax U and with open-o,
but in different orders (open-o first for "your", lax U first for
"you're" -- possibly wilson has open-o for "your" and either U or u
or both for "you're"); meanwhile, "you'd", "you'll" and "you've" have
only the tense u of "you" listed (i have lax variants for all of
these, and i think i use the lax versions much more than the tense ones)

AHD4 gives all three versions for "your" (in the order: lax U, open-
o, tense u), but *only* lax U for "you're"; meanwhile, "you'd" and
"you've" have only tense u, while "you'll" has tense u and lax U, in
that order

i fear that looking at more dictionaries would only make the
situation murkier.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

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