opportYOUnity

Wed Dec 24 12:43:59 UTC 2008

I too pronounce "male" or "mail" with the vowel in "man" so it sounds like "mal".  I think it's more prevalent than one would think.  It's hard to say the long a as in "may" followed by an "l".  In transitioning I tend to put a ~ool or ~yool (short oo as in wool) in there. mayool.

In m-w.com the speakers say "Santa Claus" and "flaw" with the "awe" sound.  But the speakers say "claws" "clause" "awe" "law""laud" "applaud" all with the "ah" vowel sound yet they have the same phonetic symbol.  This is not right in terms of the majority USA accent, which is approximately 60% awe and 40% ah for caught being said as cot (assuming this generalizes).  M-w.com is a favorite of mine, but this is a error to me. In the pronunciation guide the sample word  for this sound is "law".  But "law" is pronounced incorrectly as "lah" ~laa.  I wish they would straighten this out.

In all my years I've never heard Santa Claus said as ~Klaaz (ah vowel) before.  Nor ~Klous as well, but I assume that's not an American dialect pronunciation.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
Learn truespel in 15 minutes at http://tinypaste.com/76f44

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> Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 23:38:15 -0500
> From: strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: opportYOUnity
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Randy Alexander
> Subject: Re: opportYOUnity
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:05 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>> Native speakers are known to produce differences they cannot hear, but
>> all three (clause included) sound identical to me. BB
>
> If I'm not mistaken, they're also known to "hear" differences that
> they do not produce. For example, I have the same vowel in "male" and
> "man", but one is thought of as a long A sound, and the other a short
> A sound. This notion invalidates a lot of dialect survey work that
> was done by asking people questions on paper (or over the internet),
> like "do you say 'Mary', 'merry', and 'marry' the same way?" Not that
> many people don't say them differently, but many people may say them
> the same way but think they say them differently because they are
> affected by the spelling (or other factors).
>
> Randy
> (in Cincinnati, OH, over the holidays)
>
>> On Dec 23, 2008, at 7:59 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>
>>> Disregarding that the correct pronunciation of "Claus" is 'klows"
>>> ("ow" as in "ouch", and "s" not "z"), I think I pronounce "Claus" and
>>> "claws" differently -- more "w" in "claws". For me, "Claus" is like
>>> "clause".
>>>
>>> Or am I missing the fact that Ben is joshing? (What does "klahz"
>>> rhyme with?)
>>>
>>> Joel
>>>
>>> At 12/23/2008 10:27 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>>>> But the *correct* pronunciation of Claus and claws is indeed the
>>>> same:
>>>> klahz; just ask anyone in my family. Those who would clutter the
>>>> English language by adding superfluous vowels are truly demonic
>>>> because doing so will lead to children being completely unable to
>>>> figure out how to read. BB
>>>>
>>>> On Dec 23, 2008, at 7:19 PM, Scot LaFaive wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm beginning to *thing* the "awe-droppers" have some kind of
>>>>>> speech
>>>>> impediment to mispronounce Santa Claus.
>>>>>
>>>>> Much like the language impairment involved in the dropping of [ng]
>>>>> for [k]
>>>>> by some writers.
>>>>>
>>>>> Scot
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 12/23/08, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A Bank of America commercial puts "you" in "opportYOUnity".
>>>>>> Interesting.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Also, I heard today somewhere on TV - Santa Clahz (~klaaz). Yes,
>>>>>> is there
>>>>>> no respect by these infernal "awe-droppers". Unfortunately m-w.com
>>>>>> is
>>>>>> infected. The word "Claus" should be spoken the same as claws.
>>>>>> But in
>>>>>> m-w.com "claws" ~klauz spoken clahs ~klaaz even though the
>>>>>> phonetics show
>>>>>> an o with a dot over it (~au in truespel) which should be ~Klauz.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm beginning to thing the "awe-droppers" have some kind of speech
>>>>>> impediment to mispronounce Santa Claus.
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Randy Alexander
> Jilin City, China
> My Manchu studies blog:
> http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>
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