"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.
>
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