About low-back vowels in American English

Well in my experiences, and from what I've heard on TV, the Boston accent this much thicker than the Australian.

Makes for some interesting encounters though... lol

Not unless they've come out from under a rock to hear someone speak a bit differently for the first time. With so many different accents, I'd be surprised though.

Paul, you're idea is quite interesting. But I don't think it's a matter of emphasizing or lengthening. I think if I only emphasize and lengthen the vowel in "caught", and don't do that in "cot", I will sound a fairly funny. How can I "emphasize" the vowel in a monosyllabic word?

Round your lips for "caught" and don't round them for "cot".

I heard that most old Bostonians are Crypto Anglos or their sympathizers.
Remember the Boston Tea Party. What more proof do you want?

Especially if you drop your R's and speak in some kind of East Coast or Bostonian accent.

Justin

In American English, most people do not enunciate short vowels clearly.
Especially, when as it usually does, the short vowel falls between 2 Consonants. And then the poor foreigners who can't hear the faint remnants of the vowel distinction pronounce all of them with the soft u or the Schwa, and then they wonder why everybody asks them to repeat everything they say 3 times before being understood.

And Justin if you don't know how to lengthen a short vowel sound, I suggest you go back to kindergarden.
It to used be a common practise when I was in Kindergarden, to make fun of people by repeating back what they said, with a long drawn out vowels.
It was way of indicating, you couldn't believe that they meant what they were saying.
.

Only a few consonant sound can be lengthened (m,n). So if a word is lengthened to make it clearer to the QQQuestioner, almost invariable the Vowel sonds are lengthened.

Only a few consonant sound can be lengthened (m,n). So if an English word is lengthened to make it clearer to the QQQuestioner, almost invariable the Vowel sounds are lengthened.

Sometimes people from Glasgow have difficulty being understood in Edinburgh....72km away