either

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 9:23 AM, <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
>
> Add "aunt" to the list of words that sound pretentious to some folks with [a] or open o--which
> are the normal unaffected pronunciations for many (rather than rhyming with "can't").

But then again "can't", like "aunt", can take an affected-sounding [A]
(script a), in the British style. Recall the big laffs in "Singin' In
The Rain" when Lina Lamont, wrestling with her vocal training, finally
succeeds in pronouncing "can't" as [kA:nt], but then still ends up
saying "I cahn't stan' 'im [kA:nt st&n @m]." (IIRC.)


--Ben Zimmer

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