ah/ awe

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>But long a and long i as in "gate" and "might" as I hear them in m-w.com
>are one-phthong, not two.

If one relies on Merriam-Webster (nothing wrong with that, usually), one
might consider the following, quoted from the pronunciation guide in the
big Merriam-Webster dictionary, MW3 (I can't reproduce the symbols
perfectly here):

<</[i-macron, i.e., "long-i"]/ as in site, side, buy, tripe .... Actually,
this sound is a diphthong, ....>>

One can look in the big book itself, should one disbelieve.

-- Doug Wilson


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