apple davy?

[Robin Hamilton]

Ooops!  I think we're about to be driven to the use of IPA transcription
here ...

I'm not sure whether this is turning on the *number* of distinct vowels that
Joel and I respectively pronounce -- the "Merry Mary Married Hairy Harry"
test -- or *what particular vowels* we use in which phonetic situation.

>>pronounce "scone" to rhyme with the past tense of the verb "to shine" and
>>the English mispronounce it to rhyme with something a dog gnaws,
>
> Now just a minute.  If the past tense of "to shine" is "shone" and
> the thing that a dog gnaws is "bone", I pronounce them identically.

I don't, guv.  Interesting.  I'd rhyme words in the following groups, and
see the vowel sounds as distinct between groups.  (Caveat:  I think.  I was
never that good at phonetics, and especially inept when it came to
recognising the way I spoke and trying to transcribe it.)

            shone (past tense of shine)           bone (dog, gnawed by)

            fawn                                                stone
            dawn                                               phone
            pawn                                               moan
            lawn                                                loan
            scone                                               cone
            gone
            on                                                    own

lawn/loan and on/own seem to be the only minimal pairs I've managed to come
up with there.

> I merely get hung up on whether to pronounce it "skohn" (like "shone"
> and "bone"), as I expect the server would say, or "skahn" (like the
> preposition "on"), as I think I heard it in Scotland -- and instead
> order carrot cake.
>
> Joel

I'm not sure I'm prepared now to risk even asking for that any longer --
mibee I'll simply point at items on the menu and smile wanly.  Wanly?  How
does one pronounce *that?

Robin

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