"Blawg"

[Tom Zurinskas]

You got me there.  Just like Georgians, I say "Go Dawgs", but my other "og's" are mostly "ah's" not "awe's" (fog, smog, log, hog - in truespel ~faag, ~smaag, ~laag, ~haag).   But words like "analog" and "dialog" are "awe" words.

The term "open o" throws me in describing the sound of "awe".  In English the sound is mostly spelled with an "a" as in tradstreeng "al" (ball, always).  So why not call it "open a".  Combine the "al" forms with "aw" and "au" tradstreengs and you find twice as many words for that sound spelled by letter "a" than spelled by letter "o" in running text (truespel book 4)  And what's so "open" about the sound "awe".  Seems like "ah" opens the mouth more.  "Awe" pinches it in a bit.

It would be great if letter "o" were consistent, but it's very inconsistent.  It's the primary letter to spell the "ah" sound, but also for "long o" (as in "toe"), and for "long u" (as in to) for frequency counts in running text.  In fact, in truespel the letter "o" is not used alone to spell a sound because it's often not intuitive what sound letter "o" represents.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.

> Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:37:07 -0600
> From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU
> Subject: Re: "Blawg"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Gordon, Matthew J."
> Subject: Re: "Blawg"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Tsk, tsk, Tom. And here I thought someone who preaches greater consistency in the sound/spelling correspondence would be offended by such variability in the phonemic assignment of . Shouldn't you praise those of us who use just one vowel in all  words?
>
> Matt Gordon
> Proud "awe" repressor
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Tom Zurinskas
> Sent: Sun 12/30/2007 4:18 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "Blawg"
>
> I agree. I'd say your ideolect is standard American English for the words you've cited. What is the history of pronunciation of these words.
>
> The problem is that some folks are repressing the sound "awe" and replacing it with "ah" wherever it exists. They just do not want to say that sound.
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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