coffin pronunciation

Sat Mar 15 20:46:22 UTC 2008

My take is that the "o" in "forest" and "orange" is a separate phoneme ~or (as influenced by "r") from "awe" , not an allophone.  The sound is between "awe" and "oh".  In fact for "r-droppers" the word "more" can be anywhere from "moe" to "maw", depending on accent.  But under the influence of "r" the "o" gets a different value, as in floor, more, boar, order.  The same with ~er and ~air.

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

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 7:14 PM +0000 3/15/08, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>Actually it's the reverse.
>>See Bert Vaux's American Dialect study at
>>http://www4.uwm.edu//FLL/linguistics/dialect/maps.html
>>It has maps of dialect areas. Number 28 is the caught/cot question.
>>It shows western prevalence for pronouncing cot/caught the same.
>
>
> Actually, that's not quite right. Two different issues are involved
> here, which you're treating as the same issue. It's long been
> recognized that the cot/caught merger is more likely to appear in
> western U.S. English than in the eastern states. But if you've been
> reading this thread, you'll have seen that a number of the
> northeastern respondents are claiming that (i) they do make the
> distinction in environments like "caught" vs. "cot" (open-o vs. /a/
> respectively) but (ii) they pronounce "coffin" with the open-o. I'm
> in that group, along with several others who wrote in; in fact, I
> probably exhibit considerable variation in my pronunciation of
> "coffin", as well as in rhotic environments ("forest", "orange"), as
> also discussed here in the past. This doesn't mean I merge "caught"
> and "cot" (or "wrought" and "rot"), though.
>
> LH
>
>
>
>>
>>The data show that 61% of Americans pronounce cot/caught
>>differently. How the merger is getting so much play in the media is
>>baffling to me. Must be a westernbroadcast export. It is not a
>>good thing. It needlessly creates homonyms which interfere with
>>clearest communications. I hope no one is teaching that dropping
>>"awe" for "ah" is a good thing.
>>
>>Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems"
>>at authorhouse.com.
>>
>>
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>-----------------------
>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Rowan McMullin
>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> In the midwest, most of the people I've heard (who make a distinction, that
>>> is, between /a/ and open-o) still pronounce "coffin" with an open-o. To me,
>>> pronouncing it with an /a/ sounds like an east-coast thing.
>>>
>>> -Rowan
>>>
>>> On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 10:27 PM, Tom Zurinskas
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Is that your usual, Scot? Beating people. How old are you?
>>>>
>>>> I would think that the pronunciation of the vowel in words with "off" in
>>>> it as "ah" is a recent phonomenon. In fact if "on" and "off" have the same
>>>> "ah" sound, it could be confusing if the second phoneme is said softly or
>>>> drops out. "Turn it ah..." could be interpreted either way.
>>>>
>>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>>> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at
>>>> authorhouse.com.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>> Poster: Scot LaFaive
>>>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>>>"Coffee" has always been ~kaufee. But not anymore. The "awe-droppers"
>>>>>>refuse to say the sound ~au, and are dropping it out of the American
>>>>> English>foenubet. Not good.
>>>>>
>>>>> A friend of mine says [kah-fi] for "coffee." Shall I beat him
>>>> unmercifully
>>>>> until he submits to the proper pronunciation? The bastard does *refuse*
>>>> to
>>>>> say [kaw-fi].
>>>>>
>>>>> Scot
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 9:52 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>>>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It's an "open o" or "backward c" or whatever other visual description
>>>> you
>>>>>> want to give the IPA symbol for the vowel sound "awe" (which in
>>>> truespel is
>>>>>> ~au). So it's ~kaufin. Always has been. The word "off" has always been
>>>>>> ~auf. "Coffee" has always been ~kaufee. But not anymore. The
>>>>>> "awe-droppers" refuse to say the sound ~au, and are dropping it out of
>>>> the
>>>>>> American English foenubet. Not good.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Data show that American folks still prefer ~au at least for "caught"
>>>>>> instead of pronouncing it "cot". But many newscaster in FL are
>>>> replacing
>>>>>> "awe" with "ah". In fact some say "cloddy" instead of "cloudy".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>>>>> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at
>>>>>> authorhouse.com.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>>>> Poster: Matthew Gordon
>>>>>>> Subject: coffin pronunciation
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I was listening to a podcast featuring 2 thirty-something New Yorkers.
>>>>>> One
>>>>>>> of them pronounced 'coffin' with an open-o, and the other ridiculed
>>>> him,
>>>>>>> saying something about how it's not 'coughin'.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> My question for those of you who maintain the distinction between /a/
>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> open-o: Do you all have /a/ for 'coffin'? I'm wondering whether this
>>>> is
>>>>>>> another example of a word that varies in its phonemic assignment.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _________________________________________________________________
>>>>>> Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser!
>>>>>> http://biggestloser.msn.com/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>
>>>> _________________________________________________________________
>>>> Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail(R)-get
>>>> your "fix".
>>>> http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>_________________________________________________________________
>>Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live.
>>http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

_________________________________________________________________
Climb to the top of the charts! Play the word scramble challenge with star power.
http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan

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