native USA English speakers say "awe" > Supremes

Tue Oct 31 14:16:57 UTC 2006

May as well put this anecdote on record.  In grad school I knew a great guy from Taiwan whose "American name" was Alan Fong. His English was very good, but he had a strong accent. And one of our neighbors was a Tennesseean named Lynn Fann. (I guess I should have started that sentence with "ironically.")

  Anyway, hard as he tried, Alan could never pronounce the n's in Lynn's name properly.
  One day we determined to teach him. With great care, precision, and persistence we articulated the American name "Lynn Fann" for Alan. We all wound up laughing hysterically. When Alan said it, it always came out "Ling Fong."  No matter what. Sometimes Alan thought he could hear the difference between his own name  / faN / and Lynn's name / f&n /, other times he wasn't sure.  But it always came out "Ling Fong."

  And "Ling Fong" it was for the rest of the year.

JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: native USA English speakers say "awe" > Supremes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fritz, I've just returned from a trip to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, where
I drank a bottle or three of Yuengling in your honor. Prost!

Now, if we can just figure out how "(anti-)Semitic" came to be
pronounced as "(anti-)Semetic," even among the (pro-}Semitic.

BTW, the Czech friend who was unable to hear any distinction between
the vowel of "whipping" and that of "weeping" was named "Jiri," in
which "r" represents the (in)famous Czech _r-haczek_.
After what must have been thousands of repetiitions, I wasn't able to
reproduce this sound. In fact, I couldn't even picture in my mind what
I was supposed to do with my tongue, vocal cords, and breath.

-Wilson

On 10/30/06, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: FRITZ JUENGLING
> Subject: Re: native USA English speakers say "awe" > Supremes
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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 wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Benjamin Barrett
> > 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
> > >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > 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
> >
>
>
> --
> Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
> complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
> a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
> race. He brought death into the world.
>
> --Sam Clemens
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

--
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
race. He brought death into the world.

--Sam Clemens

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