Trivial note on pronunciation: forehead

Sat Aug 8 03:26:52 UTC 2009

Paul,

Thanks for the info on mouth sets.  I wonder if there are tell tale mouth sets in Amy Walker's 21 accents.
http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic37098.html

The site below shows facial movements with phonetics http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#
A few of these I actually think are slightly incorrect

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:
> 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:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>> 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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