Wedge and schwa

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 11:40 AM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Meanwhile, I went to hear a Beatle tribute band.  They spoke with British
> accents.  The words "just" and "us" were  said ~joost and ~oos, with short oo
> as in "good" ~good.

I should hope so! And I should also hope that they used [g] after [N] in the
Liverpudlian fashion. Thus, if they were covering "Old Brown Shoe," the rhyme
would be maintained in the lines, "If I grow up I'll be a singer / Wearing
rings on every finger." (Perhaps your patronage of Beatles tribute bands helps
explain the peculiar treatment of [N] in truespel?)

More here, if you care:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancashire_dialect_and_accent


--Ben Zimmer

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org