"Blawg"

Matthew Gordon gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU
Mon Dec 31 18:27:51 UTC 2007


The "open o" is a description of the phonetic symbol for this vowel in the
IPA or other phonetic alphabets. It's an <o> with an opening on the left
side or a "backwards c" as my students seem to like to call it.


On 12/31/07 2:41 AM, "Tom Zurinskas" <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

> 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.
>

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list