ah/ awe

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 10/3/06 1:03:50 AM, truespel at HOTMAIL.COM writes:


> The word "right" does not start out as
> "rot" and then with a wee transition vowel in it before "t."
>

If you are from Connecticut, then the word "right" starts out as some kind of
"a" sound and then transitions to a glide that is something like the first
sound in "yes," which is also about the same as the vowel in "bean."

If you do not do the offglide, you will sound like some kind of Southerner.
Indeed, the pronunciation that you are suggesting is yours in the word "right"
has been much stigmatized by Northerners as an example of Southern
"unsophisticated" speech (not that any linguist would agree that it should be
stigmatized).

This is not a matter of "opinion" (or, rather, it has the scientific status
of the belief that the world is flat or the moon is made of green peas). This
is a matter of fundamental linguistic fact, one of the first things that anyone
who has ever taken an introduction to linguistics class will learn.

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