Return of the minimal pairs

[RAHammitt at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/1/2001 2:12:53 PM Central Daylight Time,
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk writes:

> In my vernacular, even in proper names, I absolutely can't have /h/ before
> schwa or before unstressed /I/.  I might also point out that, in the US,
> the word 'vehicle' is a traditional shibboleth for spotting country
> bumpkins: if you pronounce an /h/ in 'vehicle', you're a bumpkin.  Even the
> folk singer Arlo Guthrie, hardly the personification of cosmopolitan
> sophistication, used this word to great effect on one of his records to
> identify a southern policeman as a bumpkin.  But this pronunciation
> nevertheless forces the presence of a stress on the second syllable, and
> /h/-schwa is still impossible.

> Incidentally, I've just noticed that John Wells reports that 33% of his
> American panel preferred the pronunciation of 'vehicle' with /h/, and a
> further five percent actually put the main stress on the second syllable.
> Sheesh.  Either John is using a remarkably catholic panel, or something has
> happened here since I left home.  Do any of you Yanks out there *really*
> pronounce an /h/ in 'vehicle'?

       Ok, I'll bite.  I was raised in Texas (but have travelled extensively
throughout the eastern half of the U.S.) and have spent as much time with
rural folks ("bumpkins") as I have with urban folks.  I do not pronouce the
h, and I have never heard anyone pronounce the h (except in movies where
someone was portraying "bumpkins").
       Of course, my exposure to the word is limited; the word is just not
used so much anymore.  In its place, people I talk to approximate by using
"car", whether referring to a car, a truck, a van, or any other 4-6 wheeled,
motorized vehicle.
       As for what you said about not tolerating /h/ before schwa, my speech
agrees except with the h in word-initial position.  I pronounce the word
"hull" with a schwa.  That being said, when I add syllables (ending in many
different consonants or vowels) before it in hypothetical words, I keep
dropping the h.

Richard Hammitt