Eggcorn? "warn" > "worn"

[Randy Alexander]

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 4:17 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> "The only thing to do is to _worn_ you guys [away] from this [kind] of
> low-end product."
>
>
> This one probably is dialect-dependent. In my speech, "warn" and
> "worn" don't fall together, though, e.g. "sense," "since," and "cents"
> do.

Interesting.  I believe this is the most common and standard AmE
pronunciation for both words, but I'd be interested in what ANAE (or
any other dialect survey) says if anyone has access to that (if it
even covers that).

OED has [wɔːn] (lengthened opened O) for both, and [wɔən] (open O
followed by schwa) as an alternate pronunciation for worn, so it looks
like in BrE they are homonyms for most people too.

My father's wife (white, grew up in Cincinnati) once argued with me
about the correct or most common pronunciation of "warn" (or war,
ward, wart, warm, etc.).  She said "warn" is [wɑɚn] (script A and
right-hook schwa), rhyming with "barn", adding that newscasters say it
that way.  I told her no way.  Later, she said she paid careful
attention to newscasters saying those words and admitted to me that
she was wrong (which was the first and only time she has ever done
that).

In my pronunciation classes I teach that "ar" preceded by "w" sounds
[oɚ] (lower-case O and right-hook schwa).

--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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