OT: Linguist's X-WOTY: phoneme morphs

[Joel S. Berson]

The puzzle should have had a long dash after
"phoneme", to indicate that a word was needed to complete a phrase.  Did it?

Joel

At 4/13/2008 06:16 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:

>I was working away at this week's Florida Crossword Puzzle and responded to
>the clue "phoneme" (being some kind of linguist) with the answer S-O-U-N-D.
>
>WRONG.
>
>The answer was supposed to be M-O-R-P-H.
>
>WHY????
>
>It turns out that the phrase PHONEME MORPH is a term of art in the field of
>computer-generated facial expresssions for animated figures. The idea is that
>the animated face "morphs" to be in the position it should be for any   given
>phoneme. As one web site
>(http://webplaza.pt.lu/public/mbarnig/pages/lipsync.html) puts it:
>
>"Morphing is one basic technique of Poser animation. Poser is the premier 3D
>character animation and figure design tool. The
>standard Poser head morphs for
>face animations are:
>      •     openLips
>
>      •     smile
>
>      •     frown
>
>      •     mouth O
>
>      •     mouth F
>
>      •     mouth M
>
>      •     tongue T
>
>      •     tongue L
>
>      •     brow down right/left
>
>      •     brow up right/left
>
>      •     worry right/left
>
>      •     blink right/left
>
>With these morphs, it's possible to create phonemes in Poser to create
>realistic facial animations. A phoneme is a
>linguistic term for the position of the
>lips, teeth and tongue as they make sounds."
>
>See also http://graphics.smithmicro.com/article/articleview/1846/1/326/.
>
>This is my nominee for WOTY that is most confusing to linguists. Who knew
>that lip-sync is now a science? (I really DO NOT
>do drag!!!) Or am I the last LSA
>member to know this?
>
>
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>------------------------------------------------------------
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------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org