cot/caught on the street

[Wilson Gray]

Larry wrote:

"I'm sure you didn't enter the=20 last three vowel symbols in your
message as=20

'box/question mark/question mark,'

but that's how=20 they came out on my end."

Really, Larry? I clearly see "[=AE=AA]."

-Wilson (just jivin'!)

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: cot/caught on the street
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 10:51 PM +0800 7/1/08, LanDi Liu wrote:
>>Oh, good, caught/cot again!  I missed it last time, but had some
>>observations that might be worth noting.
>>
>>I would say I'm basically a victim of the merger, but it doesn't feel
>>absolutely complete, and it depends mostly on speed.  For me (and I
>>wouldn't be surprised if this were true for many of you as well if you
>>think about it), in normal speed speech the merger is complete.  But
>>when isolating the words and saying them in a "strong form", there is
>>a fairly clear division for most words.  A few words, like "on" go
>>either way.  Both AHN and AWN are acceptable.  But other words
>>definitely go to one side or the other.  "Rock" is definitely RAHK.
>>"Long" is definitely LAWNG.  I couldn't accept RAWK or LAHNG.
>>
>>Do others have similar feelings?
>>
>>Another problem is whether your "short o" sound tends more toward [a]
>>or [=AE=AA], and whether the "aw" sound tends more toward [?] or [?] (or
>>somewhere in between).
>>
>>Thoughts?
>>
>>Randy
>
> Oops.  We're back in the land of phonetic=20
> non-faithfulness.  I'm sure you didn't enter the=20
> last three vowel symbols in your message as=20
> box/question mark/question mark, but that's how=20
> they came out on my end.
>
> LH, a [rak an] speaker
>
>>
>>On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 10:30 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
>><bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>>>  ---------------------- Information from the=20
>>>mail header -----------------------
>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>>>  Subject:      Re: cot/caught on the street
>>>=20
>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> -----
>>>
>>>  On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 10:03 AM, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.=
> edu>
>>>  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".
>>>
>>>  We had some extensive discussion of the "rawk"=20
>>>phenomenon in Feb. '05, starting
>>>  here:
>>>
>>>  http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=3Dind0502D&L=3DADS-L&P=3D=
> R6957
>>>
>>>  As I wrote at the time, "For speakers who haven't merged 'cot' and 'caug=
> ht',
>>>  'rawk' suggests an exaggerated pronunciation that might be associated wi=
> th
>>>  young male fans of hard rock (possibly also evoking 'raw' or 'raucous').=
> "
>>>
>>>  --Ben Zimmer
>>>
>>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>  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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>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
 -Sam'l Clemens

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