Phonetically correct sports

[Mircea Sauciuc]

I'm not sure I know anyone who actually pronounces Golf as ['golf].
Are we actually saying that the vowel is a mid-high back [o]?  Really?

Charles may be on to something dialectically with his
non-pronunciation of the [l] (dark-/l/ to be precise), and perhaps the
same applies to the vowel-raising.

I'm still waiting to see what people propose as "correct phonetic
spelling" of sports.  I don't believe one exists.

On 3/15/07, Jim Parish <jparish at siue.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jim Parish <jparish at SIUE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Phonetically correct sports
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Michael Quinion wrote:
> > A subscriber e-mailed me as follows: "I was recently with some friends at
> > a trivia evening. One question was 'What is the only correct phonetically
> > spelled sport?' It turned out to be 'Golf'". Your follow-up question:
> > explain what's wrong phonetically with "rugby" and "cricket".
>
> Completely off-the-wall suggestion: could it be that "Golf" is one of the
> words in the other International Phonetic Alphabet - the one that begins
> (I think) "Able, Baker, Charlie"?
>
> Jim Parish
>
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--
Best,
M.S.

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