Ambiguous AHD/AmE pronunciation guides

[Barnhart]

American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> writes:
>a fully
>adequate indication of pronunciations is simply impossible.

Well, now there's the rub.  General desk dictionaries, even as
comprehensive as AHD, have so much linguistic information to include that
"adequate" becomes a matter for the reader to judge.  There was a time
when even the American College Dictionary was regarded as radical for
introducing schwa in place of all those traditional vowel letters with
diacritics.  If it is necessary to clear up pronunciation details, perhaps
a dictionary of pronunciation is the place to go.  Or, perhaps we could
dispense with etymology and semantics to provide the space necessary for
detailed respellings that reflect the precise details for even the 1%-ers.

Happy Chrismahonukwansika,

David

barnhart at highlands.com

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