[Ads-l] "gawker" rhymes with "rocker"

[Michael Newman]

Tom, you're really gonna have to stop stressing yourself over this, and move on through the stages of mourning. You seem to be in rage. Canadians, Bostonians, and Westerners have been doing without what is properly called the LOT/THOUGHT (see http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/stanlexsets.htm) distinction for generations. It's coming to the rest of North America in an unstoppable march. I have to admit, that this makes me sad. I'm from NY. I have the classic NYC THOUGHT vowel in words like 'coffee,' 'talk' and yes 'awe.' I wish it would continue that way. It's beauty to my ears, but it won't, and short of mandatory minimal pair drills (probably only with about 6 pairs) for toddlers, it'll be gone. We're just going to have to face the facts. 



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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2016 10:19 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "gawker" rhymes with "rocker"

---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: "gawker" rhymes with "rocker"
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The problem is communication and standardization.  If someone said "We gock=
ed but didn't tock"  I wouldn't know what they were saying. (We gawked but =
didn't talk)I would think that a major news network would try to keep local=
 accents down=2C especially one that is working to eliminate a phoneme from=
 out language that we need.  It's not "shock and ah". It's "shock and awe".=
  But if you listen to "awe" on m-w.com it's spoken "ah".  So I can't recom=
mend m-w.com for pronunciation.

Tom Zurinskas=2C  Originally SWConn 20 yrs=2C  college Tenn 3=2C  work NJ  =
33=2C  now FL 14.The need for truespel phonetics - http://justpaste.it/true=
spelnow=20


 > Date: Sat=2C 11 Jun 2016 08:10:37 -0400
> From: wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: "gawker" rhymes with "rocker"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>=20
> > language changes and a lot of dialects don't have that vowel anyway.
>=20
> Plenty of reason to complain right there=2C if you ask me!
>=20
> JL
>=20
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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