cot/caught on the street

[Charles Doyle]

When my wife, an "AHN" speaker, tries to imitate (by way of good-natured ridicule) my "AWN" pronunciation of "on," it invariably comes out as "OWN." (FWIW, I've never heard "RAWK.")

--Charlie
_____________________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 11:37:35 -0400
>From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>Subject: Re: cot/caught on the street

>
>At 7/1/2008 10:03 AM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>>vanity license plate on a car parked in downtown palo alto yesterday:
>>
>>RAWK AWN
>>
>>presumably, the cot/caught merger, in favor of open-o.  for me, it'd be RAHK AWN.  but maybe the open-o appears only in this expression, under the influence of the vowel of "on".
>
>Arnold, are you really a RAHK AWN speaker, or should that be AHN?
>
>Joel - a rahk ahn speaker.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org