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

[Amy West]

On 6/12/16 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
> Date:    Sat, 11 Jun 2016 17:57:16 -0400
> From:    Galen Buttitta<satorarepotenetoperarotas3 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: "gawker" rhymes with "rocker"
>
> I don't see what the big deal is. Some dialects have this as a distinct sound (in one way or another); others don't. It doesn't make any one way of speaking better or worse, and those who don't have the COT-CAUGHT merger make do just fine.

I've just started as program manager at Literacy Volunteers of Greater 
Worcester and just sat in on one of our "Basic Pronunciation & Grammar" 
classes (ESL), and the teacher used the pen/pin minimal pair as a 
pronunciation example, and I thought, "Well, that's an example that 
wouldn't be used in a region where those pronunciations have merged. . . "

---Amy West


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