ont/ahnt

[Jonathan Lighter]

Hog rhymes with frog and log.  It has [ a:] as in gaga.

Dog doesn't rhyme with anything I can think of offhand. It has [D: ] as in
"chalk").

JL

On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 7:14 PM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dear Jonathan,
> That's my pattern too.  My wife makes fun of my pronunciation of both dog
> and hog, (She has [D]).
>
> Paul Johnston
>  On Oct 6, 2010, at 7:10 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Father and bother rhyme perfectly for me.
> >
> > Dog and hog don't. At all.
> >
> > JL
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 6:37 PM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu
> >wrote:
> >
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> >> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> "CON"/"KAHN" would work as [kDn]/[kAn] in the Pittsburgh area, I think,
> and
> >> neither would rhyme with "town", which would be [tan].  I just checked
> with
> >> two colleagues of mine, one from Canonsburg, PA, the other from
> Fairmont,
> >> WV, and they had different vowels in father and bother (a near-minimal
> pair)
> >> as [A] vs. [D] (rounded low vowel).  The latter is LOT/THOUGHT for them.
> >> The former is, in Wells's terminology, PALM.
> >>
> >> Paul Johnston
> >> On Oct 6, 2010, at 6:17 PM, David Wake wrote:
> >>
> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>> Poster:       David Wake <dwake at STANFORDALUMNI.ORG>
> >>> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
> >>>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> Can you offer a minimal pairs for these dialects?  E.g. "con"/"Kahn",
> >>> perhaps?  I thought that, with the exception of Eastern New England,
> >>> these dialects would all use their LOT vowel (rounded or unrounded)
> >>> for both lexical sets.
> >>>
> >>> D
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 11:16 AM, Paul Johnston <
> paul.johnston at wmich.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>>> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> >>>> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
> >>>>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>
> >>>> Most dialects where the LOT class is a low back ROUNDED vowel will
> >> pronounce ont and ahnt differently, particularly because of the /n/
> after
> >> it-- Eastern New England, the area from Erie PA through Pittsburgh down
> into
> >> West Virginia and into Kentucky, several Upper Southern dialects,
> Canada--in
> >> Eastern New England, the difference should be really striking: [D] (I
> mean
> >> the IPA symbol for a low back rounded vowel here) vs. a front [a:].
> >>>>
> >>>> Paul Johnston
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Oct 6, 2010, at 10:23 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >>>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>>>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> >>>>> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
> >>>>>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>>
> >>>>> At 10/5/2010 08:49 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >>>>>> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 5:45 PM, David Wake <
> dwake at stanfordalumni.org>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>>>> "ont"
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> In most dialects of AmE, "ont" = "ahnt."
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Can you give me some examples where it doesn't?  And please don't say
> >>>>> you won't.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Joel
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
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> >>>>
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> >>>
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> >>
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> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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