native USA English speakers say "awe" > Supremes

Mon Oct 30 16:17:37 UTC 2006

Wilson,
I have had exactly the same experience with 'tin' and 'ten.'  Sometimes
I've tried to distinguish the two, but it gets complicated.  I have to
remember each word. It's really bad  when this carries over into German
and I start hypercorrecting 'ich bin..' to 'ich ben' (which is also
problematic because in Dutch, it is 'ben') and other similar words.

Along the lines of not being able to hear certain things.  This is not
exactly what we have bin talking about, but perhaps amusing.  The
Supremes had a huge hit with "Stop, in the Name of Love."  If you have
bin alive in the last 40 years,  you know the song.  Well, for decades
I've bin singing right along with the girls "Stop, in the Name of Love,
big boy you break my heart."    It was only a few weeks ago that my wife
looked at me as if I had just landed from Mars and said, "It's not 'big
boy', it's 'before'."  My daughter, who knows everything, confirmed my
wife's claim.  Shock!! Shock!!  Now, I have heard this song 800
bazillion times over the last 40 years and never once heard Diana say
'before.'  I just didn't hear it.  (BTW, I still think 'big boy' is
'hear-able.')

Fritz 'scuse-me-while-I-kiss-this-guy Juengling

>>> hwgray at GMAIL.COM 10/27/2006 1:11 PM >>>
I may be out of step with the rest of mankind, but my own experience
is that a merger can not be automatically undone just because you feel
like it.

For one thing, I've found it extremely difficult even to find mergers
in my own speech. Someone has to point them out to me.

As a child, I went to a Catholic elementary school in Saint Louis in
which all of the faculty were white, but all the students were black.
>From the very first grade, I can recall teachers saying stuff like,
"10 is pronounced 'TIN,' *not* 'tin'! See? [Writing on the blackboard]
It's 'T-E-N,' not 'T-I-N'!" and wondering what in the world the
teacher could possibly be going on about. Why does she think that we
don't how to spell "10"? "T-I-N" spells "tin." not "10." We know that!

Some forty or so years later, I read somewhere or other that this kind
of general-rule-governed, i.e. E -> I / __ [+nasal], merger can be
undone in a given person's speech only if the speaker tackles
individually each word that fits the rule. I've tried that and, sure
enough, it works! But it simply isn't worth the effort: Let's see,
now. Is this "mint" as in "sprig of mint," to which the rule has
applied vacuously, in which case, I'm cool? Or is this "mint" as in,
"I meant to say," in which case I have to apply the ad-hoc rule, I ->
E / __ [+nasal] in words standardly pronounced with E [+nasal],
specific to cases like these, to reverse the effect of the general
rule?

-Wilson

On 10/27/06, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Can some native USA English speakers say "awe" or
not
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Sometimes I have similar thoughts, though opposite.
>
> One day I was in a room of sociolinguistics student and a SL
professor
> and made a reference to the "bawdy" language of Shakespeare. Every
> single person thought I meant "body" despite the fact that "body
> language" and 'bawdy language" have different stress patterns. And
they
> were in MY native dialect territory of Seattle; transplants, every
one.
>
> Another way I have similar thoughts is my amazement when TV
newscasters
> can't pronounce the "t" in tsunami. But then I realize that just like
I
> can't pronounce that "awe" sound, they can't say syllable initial
"ts".
> I imagine they would have similar trouble pronouncing the "tl" in
Tlingit.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> a cyberbreath for language life
> livinglanguages.wordpress.com
>
> Tom Zurinskas wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------
> > Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> >
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I believe awe-droppers as native born American English speakers can
hear the
> > sound "awe" and they can say the sound "awe".  They just don't like
the
> > sound "awe" nor forming it in their mouths when they talk.  They
may llive
> > in an area were "awe" is dropped and they don't use it much.
> >
> > I cannot believe that any native born American English speaker
exposed to as
> > much TV and radio as they are simply cannot form their mouths to
say one of
> > the main phonemes of USA English.
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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