native USA English speakers say "awe" > Supremes

Tue Oct 31 15:36:05 UTC 2006

>>> hwgray at GMAIL.COM 10/30/2006 8:41 PM >>>
>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!

Good deal!!!  But I think those folks must be DISTANT relatives!
I've heard it said that 'only babies and Mormon missionaries learn to
speak Finnish.'  Maybe that applies to Czech as well. Reminds me of the
famous r/l/d  problem of some East Asian languages.

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 <JUENGLING_FRITZ at salkeiz.k12.or.us>
wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       FRITZ JUENGLING <JUENGLING_FRITZ at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US>
> 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 <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
> >
>
>
> --
> 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

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org