Dawgs

[Jonathan Lighter]

Get ready to laff !

  I have a VHS tape about a sailing voyage in the 1920s around the tip of South America that a friend of mine wanted to borrow. I remember saying before he walked out the door without it, "Don't forget the Cape Horn video."

  My wife said, incredulously, "Gay porn video ! ?"

  Well, here's the funny part: the pun works no matter how rhotic you are !  Wild, huh ?

  And by the way, what do you call rhoticism on the Internet ?

  No, no, it's too hilarious. I can't write it !

  JL

Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Alice Faber
Organization: Haskins Laboratories
Subject: Re: Dawgs
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm quite sure that Labov treats SAUCE/SOURCE in NYC as a near merger.

Somewhere in my files, I have an old New Yorker article by a NYC cop
with literary aspirations. One anecdote in this article about street
policing deals with the apparent ambiguity of PORN SHOP/PAWN SHOP.

Beverly Flanigan wrote:
> Labov has tested many of these "near mergers" and has found that outsiders
> generally perceive them as full mergers (homophones) but that
> insiders/users can usually detect the subtle differences--though even they
> can get confused sometimes when they hear the words out of context. See
> his studies of Birmingham, Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.
>
> At 04:31 PM 10/26/2006, you wrote:
>> I'm as rhotic as a native New Yorker can get, but the sauce/source merger
>> sounds almost inevitably true for some speakers.
>>
>> I may, in fact, be one of those people "leveled" by radio and TV.
>>
>> No kidding. I can recall cultivating "r"s in first and second grade
>> because I wanted to sound more like Gene Autrey. Most of my classmates,
>> IIRC, were much less rhotic.
>>
>> JL
>>
>> Paul Johnston
wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Paul Johnston
>>
>> Subject: Re: Dawgs
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> Yes--if we take "tenseness" = " peripherality". Some reports
>> (Labov?) suggest a near-merger of sauce/source with the V1 of the
>> first one less "tense' or peripheral. I can't check it with my
>> speech as I'm rhotic, but if I imitate it, it sounds like possible NYC.
>>
>> Paul Johnston
>> On Oct 26, 2006, at 2:59 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender: American Dialect Society
>> > Poster: Jonathan Lighter
>> > Subject: Re: Dawgs
>> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > ---------
>> >
>> > That sounds about right, Paul. Is "tenseness" not factor here ?
>> >
>> > JL
>> >
>> > Paul Johnston
>> wrote:
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender: American Dialect Society
>> > Poster: Paul Johnston
>> >
>> > Subject: Re: Dawgs
>> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > ---------
>> >
>> > Ranges from a raised backwards-c long monophthong (in careful
>> > speech), through a diphthong starting with this vowel and going to
>> > schwa (thus, [O@]), through [o@] to [U@]. V1's are slightly
>> > centralized. I don't have a lengthened V1 in mine, but if I come out
>> > with a monophthongal variant, it's a long one. The stereotype is
>> > probably [U@].
>> >
>> > In a pattern that throws Midwesterners, I have this vowel in dog, but
>> > centralized script a (+ or - following schwa) in all other -og words.
>> >
>> > Paul Johnston
>> >
>> >
>> > On Oct 26, 2006, at 2:12 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>> >
>> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> >> -----------------------
>> >> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> >> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
>> >> Subject: Re: Dawgs
>> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> -
>> >> ---------
>> >>
>> >> How does one indicate the notorious NYC "dawg," also heard in
>> >> "cawfee"?
>> >>
>> >> It's extra tense, I think. Not elongated, though.
>> >>
>> >> JL
>> >>
>> >> "Mark A. Mandel" wrote:
>> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> >> -----------------------
>> >> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> >> Poster: "Mark A. Mandel"
>> >> Subject: Re: Dawgs
>> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> -
>> >> ---------
>> >>
>> >> Bev wrote:
>> >>>>>
>> >> Actually, I'll modify my vowel a bit: In this area, at least, the
>> >> core
>> >> vowel is midway between /a/ and /O/, the so-called "turned script a".
>> >> <<<
>> >>
>> >> Cardinal "turned script a" is low back rounded: same jaw and tongue
>> >> position
>> >> as "script a", but with lip rounding. Is that what you mean?
>> >> http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/vowels.html
>> >>
>> >> m a m


--
 =============================================================================
Alice Faber faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA fax (203) 865-8963

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