How the OED pronounces "lot" and "cloth"

[Paul Johnston]

It'd be with a short low back rounded vowel--roughly like a Great Lakes person in "thought", but nowhere near what someone from NYC would have in that word.  So, yes, it's "lawt" but not the way I'd pronounce it--my students at Western Michigan would pronounce it that way.

Older RP speakers may have [klO:T], closer to yours and mine (when I'm on my best linguistic behavior, anyhow) but never [lO:t].

Paul Johnston
On Oct 6, 2010, at 4:57 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: How the OED pronounces "lot" and "cloth"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Do you mean RP speakers pronounce "cloth" like "cot" -- klahth? Or
> that they pronounce "lot" like "moth" -- lawt?  Both are odd to my
> (American) ear.  I would receive them as pretentious -- but perhaps
> that's what RP stands for.  :-)
>
> In the OED both are 2nd edition (1989) entries, so (as I interpret
> the pronunciation key description) they show only British
> pronunciation; and the vowels are identical.
>
> Joel
>
> At 10/6/2010 04:40 PM, Paul Johnston wrote:
>> Modern RP would have these as identical, and probably, hence, the
>> identical pronunciation in OED, though really old RP speakers (and
>> Cockneys) would not merge these vowels.  American dialects descended
>> partially from Southern English varieties with the distinction in
>> place, so they're different for most of us  unless TZ's bugaboo, the
>> COT/CAUGHT merger has taken place, as CLOTH joins the CAUGHT
>> class.  I have retracted [a] in the first, [O@~o@] in the second.
>>
>> Paul Johnston
>> On Oct 6, 2010, at 4:28 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>
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>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>> Subject:      How the OED pronounces "lot" and "cloth"
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> While checking the OED's pronunciation(s) of want, wont, won't -- and
>>> wa'n't, I found that the "Key for New Edition entries" pronounces
>>> "lot" and "cloth" identically.  I don't.  Lot is hot; cloth is
>>> moth.  And I do consider myself "among educated urban speakers of
>>> standard English in Britain and the United States."
>>>
>>> What say others in this cas[t]e?
>>>
>>> (I'm gratified, however, to see that the New Edition key uses only
>>> words from English, in contrast to the Second Edition key, which
>>> expects one to know how to pronounce the vowels of at least German --
>>> and for "foreign and non-southern" (non-Mediterranean? Or merely not
>>> the south of England?) consonants, also know the pronunciation of
>>> Italian, French, North German, and Afrikaans.)
>>>
>>> Joel
>>>
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>>
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