Raleigh, N.C. -- awesome or aw-dropping?

Sun Feb 16 12:16:46 UTC 2014

I checked the Carnegie-Mellon database of 129k words for the tradstring (string of letters in traditional spelling) "log" (with hard "g").  The results gave the following root words (where ~au stands for "awe" and ~aa stands for "ah" and ~oe stands for "oh".

analog -   ~anulaug
backlog -   ~baklaag, 
backlogs -   ~baklaugz
catalog -   ~katulaug
catalogs -   ~katulaagz
clog -   ~klaag
clogged -   ~klaugd
dialog -   ~die'ulaug
epilogue -   ~epulaug
flog -   ~flaag
ideologue -  ~idee'oeloeg or ~ideeyoeloeg
Kellog -   ~Kelaug
log -   ~laug
logger - ~laager
logjam - ~laagjam
plog -   ~plaag
prolog(ue) -   ~proelaag
slog -  ~slag
Tagalog -   ~Tagulaag

Tom Zurinskas, Conn 20 yrs, Tenn 3, NJ 33, now Fl 9.
See how English spelling links to sounds at http://justpaste.it/ayk

> Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2014 11:07:28 -0500
> From: paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU
> Subject: Re: Raleigh, N.C. -- awesome or aw-dropping?
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> 
> ---------------------- 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: Raleigh, N.C. -- awesome or aw-dropping?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Laurence:
> I do.  Dog stands alone among all -og words; the rest belong to PALM, actually, due to the O-split rule.  Does anyone with COT and PALM different have the other -og words with COT instead?
> 
> Paul
> On Feb 14, 2014, at 10:11 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
> 
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: Raleigh, N.C. -- awesome or aw-dropping?
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Feb 14, 2014, at 9:45 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> >
> >> On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 8:12 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Cf. HOG and DOG.
> >>>>
> >>>> JL
> >>>
> >>> Right.  I think we discussed these a while back.  For me (NYC, b. 1945), nothing rhymes with "dog" but "blawg".
> >>
> >> On the pronunciation of "blog" vs. "blawg", see my Language Log post of 1/24/06:
> >>
> >> ----
> >> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002780.html
> >> For speakers with the cot-caught merger of low back vowels (such as
> >> most residents of the western U.S.), the vowel in _blog_ merges with
> >> the vowel in _law_, with the result that _blawg_ is homonymous with
> >> _blog_. Speakers without the merger tend to use the _cot_ vowel for
> >> most words ending in _-og_, with the exception of _dog_ and
> >> occasionally other common words. _Blog_ is not (yet!) common enough to
> >> be subject to this lexical diffusion and thus remains distinct from
> >> _blawg_ for most speakers lacking the merger.
> >> ----
> >>
> >> I don't think "blog" has become common enough in the intervening six
> >> years to join the "dog" class for us non-mergerers.
> >>
> > Is there anything else in your "dog" class?  As noted, I don't have anything in mine, however common--other than "blawg", which is quite un-, and which of course qualifies for membership in the class only as a spelling pronunciation.  It doesn't seem as though frequency really plays a role for me, except perhaps for the fact that "dog" is more frequent than any of its non-rhyming rivals. Do other NYCers share this intuition?
> >
> > LH
> >
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