ah/ awe

[Tom Zurinskas]

>From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>
>Tom, the school systems of several nations have been trying for a century
>and a half to keep people from saying "ain't."  With little success.
>
>   In the second grade in NYC, a substitute teacher tried to get us to
>pronounce the vowel identically (as "ah") in all these words:
>   Frog, Hog, Log, Smog, Fog, Dog.
>   She claimed it only made sense and, apparently, would help build
>character. We thought she was a crank. Eventualy she gave up. For me,
>they're all "ah" except for "dawg."  In many other places they're all "aw"
>or something similar.
JL

Jonathan

I speak these the same as you.   The letter "o" stands for many sounds, but
letters "au" and "aw" have strong links to sound "awe" that should not be
retained not broken to retain the alphabetic principal for learners.

I've done some research on the spelling of phonemes.  Turns out that in
running text for the sound "awe"  the letter "o" beats out "au" and "aw".
But the letter "o" is the primary spelling of the "ah" sound and is used 5
times as much to spell "ah" than "awe".

The sund "ah"is more than twice as popular as the sound "awe" in English
running text (newspapers).

Tom Z

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