ah/ awe

Tom Zurinskas truespel at HOTMAIL.COM
Mon Oct 2 02:44:08 UTC 2006


>From: sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>

>Tom, would you wipe out all dialectal differences in pursuit of this
>pronounce-as-spelled campaign?  How would you deal, e.g., with the
>diphthongal i with which most northerners pronounce /light, sight, might/,
>&c?

I'm not familiar with that dipthong.  In m-w.com those words above do not
have vowels that are two-phthongs to me.

As an ideal, dialectical differences are not good.  The purpose of speech is
to communicate.  Any alterations that lessen this is not a good thing.   We
don't have dialects when we write, why should we in this day and age have
them when we talk.

Tom Z

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



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