Trivial note on pronunciation: forehead

Sat Aug 8 01:00:45 UTC 2009

Tom:
As in America, there are all kinds of articulatory settings
("default" or constant positions of the vocal tract), depending on
dialect, both regional and social.  I don't think you can generalize
as to which one is "more forward in the mouth", though there are
tendeecies in the settings and the setting is just as much part of
the dialect as the sound system is.  Many American accents use an
"open jaw" setting--i. e. we tend to open our mouths fairly wide when
we speak--most British ones don't have this setting (though I bet
localized Southeast of England does).  Edinburgh Scots, the dialect I
did a post-doc on, has a raised larynx, prominent dentalization and
pharyngealization, and a protruded jaw setting.  You can actually see
the latter in pictures, where Scots speakers seem to have a "Hapsburg
lip".  Upscale speakers don't have this, but have close jaw instead
and less pharyngealization.  If you are really interested in this (or
if anyone here is) look at John Esling's sociolinguistic study of
voice quality in Edinburgh, or the works of john Laver or, more
recently, Jane Stuart-Smith.  The difficulty John ran into is to
measure how much of a certain voice quality feature someone has  (and
have phoneticians agree on the values), but modern technology might
help this along.  The dialect component of voice quality might be a
really big factor in setting constraints on directionality of sound
change, in fact--the extreme velar setting of Liverpudlian English,
for instance, might "help along" the change of /u/ and /o/ to [Iu~Y:]
and [8u] (where [8] is an IPA backwards e, a high-mid central
unrounded vowel) and block the alternative route to [Uu] and [Ou~^u],
since these sounds require more effort to make with such a velarized
background setting.
I realize I'm waxing technical over something which is plainly folk
linguistic, but I'm always interested in what anyone has to say about
the dialectal component of voice quality anyplace, and its role in
setting vowel shifting routes.

As to glottalization, almost all UK dialects have some form of it.
You're right that prestigious varieties keep the cluster intact.

Paul Johnston
On Aug 7, 2009, at 5:44 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Trivial note on pronunciation: forehead
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> Paul,
>
> Right.  Fast speech vs careful speech.  I've heard n UK accent the
> word "fact" sometimes has both the c and t as one glottal stop.  In
> truespel this is ~fa'.  But the word "fat" in truespel with a
> glottal stop is also ~fa'.  Both sound the same.  I heard the "ct"
> glottalized several times in UK accent.  Don't know how common it
> is or where from.  The glottal ending "t" is so, so, so common, yet
> not dictionary but mine recognizes it.
>
> I checked the freedictionary.com and both UK and USA speakers say
> ~fakt.
>
> One theory I've heard is that UK English is more forward in the
> mouth.  If that's so then those sounds from the back of the mouth
> might be elided.  Seems so.
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
> see truespel.com phonetic spelling
>
>
>
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Paul Johnston
>> Subject: Re: Trivial note on pronunciation: forehead
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------
>>
>> Tom,
>> I've never heard the /k/ dropped in fact anyplace in the UK, and I've
>> studied their dialects since the '70s. What I have heard is the /t/
>> dropped, as in AAVE and other American vernaculars, and a
>> possibility of the final /k/, like final /t/, turning into glottal
>> stop, so that fat and fact may merge as [fa?] or I suppose [fae?] in
>> the South of England. In careful speech, though, the same speakers
>> who do that will separate them, and the /k/ pops back in in fact,
>> while fat will either have /t/ or the glottal stop
>>
>> Paul Johnston.
>> On Aug 6, 2009, at 5:24 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>> Subject: Re: Trivial note on pronunciation: forehead
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> --
>>> ---------
>>>
>>> Forrid for forehead? Not in USA I would think. Sounds UK. They
>>> do a lot of word squeezing over there, dropping "h" "r" "c" and
>>> other sounds and syllables in words. My least favorite is "fat"
>>> for "fact".
>>>
>>> Down south USA "head" is two syllables in some places. HEY-yud
>>> ~heyud, expanding it one syllable. I don't think UK does expansion.
>>>
>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>> see truespel.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------
>>>> Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 22:46:43 -0400
>>>> From: hwgray at GMAIL.COM
>>>> Subject: Re: Trivial note on pronunciation: forehead
>>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>> Poster: Wilson Gray
>>>> Subject: Re: Trivial note on pronunciation: forehead
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> --
>>>> ----------
>>>>
>>>> Exactly. That's where I learned the pronunciation in the first
>>>> place.
>>>> Needless to say, we're not the only two people in the English-
>>>> speaking
>>>> world who learned this rhyme as children. Nevertheless, after
>>>> people
>>>> learn how to read, many of them switch to the spelling-
>>>> pronunciation.
>>>> And, if a peron grows up in a 4head-speaking family, it may very
>>>> well
>>>> be the case that, for such a person, "forrid" does not have a
>>>> real-world referent.
>>>>
>>>> I once discussed this with a 4head-speaker. She argued that "4head'
>>>> has always been the proper pronunciation. The pronunciation
>>>> "forrid"
>>>> is merely a distortion necessary to make "forehead" rhyme with
>>>> "horrid."
>>>>
>>>> Well, that's a reanalysis of the history of the pronunciations
>>>> that's
>>>> impossible to refute in a casual conversation.
>>>>
>>>> -Wilson
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 9:49 PM, Dave Hause wrote:
>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>> Poster: Dave Hause
>>>>> Subject: Re: Trivial note on pronunciation: forehead
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> --
>>>>> -----------
>>>>>
>>>>> Why, it must, for the rhyme to work:
>>>> <
>>>>> There was a little girl
>>>>> Who had a little curl
>>>>> Right in the middle of her forehead.
>>>>> And when she was good,
>>>>> She was very, very good
>>>>> And when she was bad she was horrid.
>>>>>
>>>>> Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net
>>>>> Waynesville, MO
>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>> From: "Wilson Gray"
>>>>> To:
>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 8:19 PM
>>>>> Subject: Trivial note on pronunciation: forehead
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I notice that "Ducky" (David McCallum) of NCIS properly :-) rhymes
>>>>> "forehead" with "horrid." Of course, he's even older, by four
>>>>> years,
>>>>> than I am.
>>>>> --
>>>>> -Wilson
>>>>> –––
>>>>> 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.
>>>>> -----
>>>>> -Mark Twain
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> -Wilson
>>>> –––
>>>> 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.
>>>> -----
>>>> -Mark Twain
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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