ont/ahnt

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:11 PM -0400 10/6/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>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").

Ditto for me, essentially, but it *could* rhyme with other words.  In
fact it rhymes with "blawg" (a law-based blog, with supposedly 3.95
million g-hits; not to be confused with "blog" itself, which of
course rhymes with "frog" and "log") and with "Smaug" (Tolkien's
dragon, which doesn't rhyme with "smog"), although I concede that
those are spelling pronunciations, since neither comes up much in
ordinary conversation.

LH

>
>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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>>  >
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > --
>>  > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>>  truth."
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>
>
>
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>
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