the dissappearing "awe" sound (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Matthew Gordon]

As was pointed out to you the last time you raised this example, "off" and
"on" have the same vowel in many (probably most) dialects of English
including modern RP (=Standard British English), Australian, and everywhere
in the US except for the North (i.e. north of I-80, roughly, through the
Great Lakes region). You, Tom, speak a minority dialect in which 'on' has an
unrounded vowel as in 'Don.' For many others who preserve a distinction
between 'Don' and 'dawn,' 'on' rhymes with the latter, and of course for
those of us with the merger 'on' rhymes with both.


On 5/26/09 2:24 PM, "Tom Zurinskas" <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:


> I recently warned of the awe-dropping trend making words "on and off"
> dangerously close in pronunciation if both vowels are said the same - "ah".
> Just recently on a flight the stewardess said "Turn all electronic media ah."
> She clipped off the last sound.  She ws an awe-dropper that meant to say
> "off", but the "ah" sound to me is the word "on".  I hope we all knew it was
> "off", but that is a real problem.
>
> I don't want the nuclear powerplant manager saying "turn the water ah".  And
> have that interpreted the wrong way.  It should be mandatory that "off" have
> the "awe" vowel and "on" have the "ah" vowel for safety sake.
>
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> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> see truespel.com
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> ----------------------------------------
>> Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 11:14:33 -0500
>> From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL
>> Subject: Re: the dissappearing "awe" sound (UNCLASSIFIED)
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC"
>> Subject: Re: the dissappearing "awe" sound (UNCLASSIFIED)
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --
>>
>> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>> Caveats: NONE
>>
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
>>> Behalf Of Tom Zurinskas
>>> Sent: Saturday, May 23, 2009 10:13 AM
>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>> Subject: the dissappearing "awe" sound
>>>
>>> Can you believe this advice to English learners. Life is simpler: One
>>> less phoneme to say. To me this shows the need to stabilize the
>>> language. No more awe-dropping.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> If only someone had had the foresight to stabilize the language 600
>> years ago, it would have been so much easier to slog through "Canterbury
>> Tales".
>>
>> Seriously, why does the language need stabilizing? So what if it
>> evolves? That's one of the reasons that English has become a global
>> language.
>>
>> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>> Caveats: NONE
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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