pronunciation of "Worcester" (Mass.) (was: ADS-L Digest - 22Feb 200 9 to 23 Feb 2009 (#2009-55))

[Doug Harris]

Just wondering, did Burns or any other Scot write anything using the
likes of moon and out (or down) in a rhyme?
To many unfamiliar with anything but American or British English
pronunciation, either of those would sound bloody awful!
dh

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----- Original message ----------------------------------------
From: "Paul A Johnston, Jr." <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Received: 2/25/2009 6:09:53 PM
Subject: Re: pronunciation of "Worcester" (Mass.) (was: ADS-L Digest - 22Feb 2009 to 23 Feb 2009 (#2009-55))


>This does seem to be a gap in the IPA, though I have used barred capital I when
>talking about a lax
>high central unrounded vowel, and tried to get away with a barred upside-down
>horseshoe for its
>rounded counterpart, which was very common in my Scottish data in either words
>like MOON,
>SPOON or OUT, DOWN, depending on whether the speakers were using their
>Scottish Standard
>English or their Scots variety.  I was told to use the symbol for a lax high back vowel
>with two dots
>over it, though this, to me, would seem to be a symbol for a centralized back vowel,
>not a central
>one.  I think that's the accepted symbol though, and I haven't seen one for the
>unrounded vowel in
>my 2nd syllable of chicken.  It doesn't sound like Russian y, as in my, ty, vy though,
>which is a
>barred /i/.

>Paul Johnston

>----- Original Message -----
>From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>Date: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 12:56 pm
>Subject: Re: pronunciation of "Worcester" (Mass.) (was: ADS-L Digest - 22  Feb
>2009 to 23 Feb
>2009 (#2009-55))

>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header ------------
>> -----------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: pronunciation of "Worcester" (Mass.) (was: ADS-L
>> Digest - 22
>>              Feb               2009 to 23 Feb 2009 (#2009-55))
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -----------
>>
>> At 11:50 AM -0500 2/25/09, Mark Mandel wrote:
>> >On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 11:36 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com>
>> wrote:>
>> >>  FWIW, a friend of mine, a native of Worcester, pronounces the name
>> >>  something like "Wistuh." I heard the same or, at least, a very
>> similar>>  pronunciation, used here in Boston by a guy who said
>> that he had been
>> >>  to - not "lived in" - "Wistuh." I'd expect a lower vowel than
>> what is
>> >>  probably an unrounded /u/. Naturally, another possibility is
>> that my
>> >>  hearing simply isn't what it used to be.
>> >>
>> >>  -Wilson
>> >>
>> >
>> >Now, that rings a bell.
>> >
>> >For 20 years or so I lived in Framingham, Mass., which is halfway
>> between>Boston and Worcester. I think that vowel is close to a lax
>> barred i -- high
>> >central unrounded (but probably not spread). So /'w+st@/, using
>> '+' for
>> >barred i and '@' for schwa. Might even be unrounded back, a lax
>> turned m.
>> >
>> >(Did IPA drop barred cap i, or was it ever official? I certainly
>> remember>seeing and using it.
>>
>> On my chart, there's both a cap I and a (lower-case) barred i, the
>> former where we'd guess it should be (with the cap Y as the rounded
>> version) and the latter a high central unrounded vowel, of which the
>> rounded counterpart is barred u.  Then there are the back pair, the
>> upside-down m we were both referring to and the usual [u].  But
>> there's no cap barred i as far as (the) i can see.
>>
>> >And by analogy to that and to cap i and cap Y, I like
>> >to think of the phone formally written as llax turned m as a
>> Cyrillic "sha",
>>
>> It sha looks like one.  No little hook on the lower right that would
>> turn it into a shcha.
>>
>> LH
>>
>> >U+0448.)
>> >
>> >m a m
>> >
>> >------------------------------------------------------------
>> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>

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