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

James A. Landau JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM
Tue Jun 14 11:49:37 UTC 2016


On Mon, 13 Jun 2016 10:56:17 Zone-0700  David Champion <dgc.ads at BIKESHED.US>
quoted and wrote: 

>> 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. . . "

>Where I come from, neither word is distinguishable from "paean" - except
>that anyone saying "paean" is like to get run off by a jacked-up F-350.

The prisoners from the USS Pueblo, after being captured by North Korea:
"We'd like to paean North Korea"---a pun that requires "paean" to be pronounced /pee on/

- James A. Landau

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