Return of the minimal pairs

[David Salmon]

Larry Trask wrote:

>> 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'?

Richard Hammitt replied:

> 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.

To which I add:

I do pronounce the "h," though also being a native Texan who has lived
abroad-from-Texas for many years, and not, I trust, a country bumpkin.  It
is simply a Southernism, necessary to the drawl.  I don't really know how
one could pronounce "vehicle" in a Southern way without an "h."   Which is
probably why we just say "pickup."

David