laud/loud

[Herb Stahlke]

An MSNBC newsreader just talked about people being [laUd at d] for good deeds.
I suspect her writer had written <lauded> and she didn't recognize the word,
at all or at that moment, on the teleprompter.  Would an educated
twenty-something not know the <laud>/<loud> contrast?  I couldn't tell from
her speech at the moment whether she has the low back vowel merger.
Charitably, it could have been a slip.

Herb

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