[Ads-l] melodicas and bazookas

[Laurence Horn]

> On Nov 4, 2016, at 1:22 PM, Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM> wrote:
> 
> I'd pronounce "fear" as a diphthong too, I think.
> 
> But interestingly, when I was searching for minimal pairs where I'd pronounce
> the vowel differently (at least, inside my head -- a tape-recorder might beg to
> differ, which is one among several reasons why I was always rotten at
> phonetics), I came up with peer/pier vs. pair/pare, and purse vs. parze, but for
> the life of me, the best I could manage for a monosyllabic version of "-per" was
> the quasi-Latin  "as per usual".

What about "purr"?  For me, "How much per?" (asked elliptically while holding up an orange at a fruit stand) and "How much purr?" (asked semi-grammatically while holding up a cat at a pet store) are pretty much homophonous.  


> 
> Does English only allow "per" as a bound prefix?
> 
> Sort of why I thought "Merry Mary married hairy Harry" (a marriage made in hell)
> might be relevant to the issue.
> 
> Robin
> 
>> 
>>    On 04 November 2016 at 16:57 Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>    FWIW, for me, the vowel in “McPherson” is a monophthong, but “fear” is
>> either disyllabic or the vowel is a diphthong. BB
>> 
>>> On 4 Nov 2016, at 01:57, Robin Hamilton
>>> <robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM> wrote:
>>> 
>>> In my idiolect, it rhymes with "person", not "purse on" or "fearsome".
>>> 
>>> Are we into Mary's Marriage territory here?
>>> 
>>> Robin
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I used to say "fur" because I saw a movie with a character named
>>>> "MacPherson" who was called "manFURson" by the other characters. But it
>>>> seems to me that, in real life, most people say "macFEERson."
>>>> 
>> 
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> 
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