the dissappearing "awe" sound

[Tom Zurinskas]

You're a cod/card, Nathan.  Mock/mark my words, increasing confusion comes from changing pronunciation away from the alphabetic principle when it makes for more homonyms.  Webster made the point that the alphabetical principle should be maintained.

We have universal grade schools now.  Standard accents could be taught, much as I was taught a standard accent many years ago.  The standard should not drop the phoneme "awe".  Or do you think it should?

You didn't answer my questions below.


Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
see truespel.com



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> Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 05:21:38 -0400
> From: Nathan.Sanders at WILLIAMS.EDU
> Subject: Re: the dissappearing "awe" sound
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Nathan Sanders
> Subject: Re: the dissappearing "awe" sound
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jun 3, 2009, at 3:18 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>
>> Have you no problem with changing talk to tock, walk to wok, hawk to
>> hock, Dawn to Don etc.? as awe-dropping does. Do you think it's a
>> great idea? Is it an improvement? Do you promote it?
>
> Have you no problem with changing maid to made, gait to gate, tail to
> tale, plain to plane, etc.? Do you think it's a great idea? Is it an
> improvement? Do you promote it?
>
> How about tow to toe, rowed to rode, soul to sole, grown to groan, etc.?
>
> How about sea to see, meat to meet, heal to heel, team to teem, etc.?
>
> Given how vocally desperate you are to prevent the pane and confusion
> sure to result from completion of the cot-caught merger, I have know
> doubt your ideological twin from about 1650 had quite a problem with
> "ai-dropping", "ow-dropping", and "ea-dropping", since these changes
> cause(d) the loss of THREE phonemes, not just one. But you seam not
> to care about these three mergers at all, and I find that quite awed.
>
> Nathan
>
> --
> Nathan Sanders
> Linguistics Program
> Williams College
> http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/
>
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