`bast'

[Nicholas Widdows]

Sheila Watts wrote:

> In RP, there are two possible pronunciation of the vowel spelt <a> in words
> of this type (and elsewhere, but let's not spread this net too wide), one
> more raised and fronted than the other. The pronunciation difference is
> noted in Alan Ross's essay on 'U and Non-U' where he refers to whether
> people pronouce 'mass to rhyme with pass instead of gas'.

There was a change in London/SE speech of [&] as in 'cat' to [A:] as in
'father' in the environments before [s], [f], and [T], but not before [S].
It applied to familiar words, so we use [A:] in glass, pass, past, castle,
master, plaster, ask, mask, laugh, half, chaff, raft, shaft, bath, path, and
many others. But it generally stayed [&] in (even slightly) learned or
foreign words, so we say [&] in bass (fish), gas, vassal, pastel, castanet,
mastiff, masculine, Mafia. Also b&ffle: and always m&ss for 'amount; weight'
and almost always for 'church service', [mA:s] being extremely antiquated or
pretentious. I vacillate on graph, say photogrAph but (photo)gr&phic, stick
to [&] for pathos or blastocyst or chloroplast. In unfamiliar but
old-looking words like lath and bast I automatically go for [A:]. All in
all, one simple rule with complicated ramifications. It's now a regional
thing rather than class.

It must antedate the settlement of Australia, where they always use [A:],
except uniquely in the regionally/class varying 'castle'. Yet as late as the
1890s it was castigated as a Cockney vulgarism: writers made their
characters say <arsk>. The [A:] among modern Cockneys is very slightly
further back. The same change also happened before [ns] and [nt], as in
dance and plant, but here Australia retains [&].

I find it odd to say two [A:] syllables, so I tend to say tr&nsplAnt and
Afterm&th.

By the way, my Chambers's shows 'bast' with a-circumflex, which is their
symbol for "& or A:, your choice". This eccentric dictionary tries to cover
Scottish, Northern English, and Southern English with a single
transcription.

Nicholas Widdows