"open o" loss

[Tom Zurinskas]

Do you hear these differences (for,four,horse,hoarse) as the speaker says them in m-w.com (great resource).  As I hear them the vowels are all ~or (as in the word or).  M-w.com does not recognize ~or as a phoneme (the sound of the letter "o" as influenced by "r").  But it's a tweener between "awe" and "oh".  It deserves it's own phoneme slot, because it's not "oh or "awe".

Unfortunately the word "awe" is mispronounced as "ah" in m-w.com.  Hear it correctly in the word "flaw", which is given the same phonetic symbol as "awe".  Of interest is that if an "r" is added to "flaw" it should result in the correct pronunciation of "floor" as the notation from m-w.com indicates.  Click the icon and hear long o, "flowr", almost two syllables, ~floe'er, instead.   But "door" is ~dor.

I go with "floor" the same as "door" ~dor and ~flor.

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





> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:32:57 -0400
> From: cdoyle at UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "open o" loss
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Charles Doyle
> Subject: Re: "open o" loss
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Four" would ordinarily have /o/ or /ow/; "for" would have the open o. (The parallel distinction often mentioned in the textbooks is "hoarse" vs. "horse.")
>
>
>
> ---- Original message ----
>>Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:11:36 -0400
>>From: Herb Stahlke
>>
>>What vowels would the local dialect normally have?
>>
>>Herb
>>
>>On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 8:14 AM, Charles Doyle  wrote:
>>>
>>> Disregarding the traditional dialect of the local area, the University of Georgia's gymnastics team is sporting the slogan "Back 4 more" as it enters the NCAA meet this weekend, hoping to win its fourth consecutive national championship.
>>>
>>> (The pun--which was not at first obvious to me--merges "four" and "for.")
>>>
>>> --Charlie
>>> _____________________________________________________________
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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