Most annoying mispronunciation

Wait, how do you say "temperature," Deborah? I usually say /tEmp@tS@r/ (so, "tempatchur") or more rarely /tEmp@rtS@r/. Looks like you picked up on the /E/ --> /æ/ shift in our good friend the California Vowel Shift, which is most pronounced in particular young female speakers (tho everyones' vowel formants have been moving away at least somewhat from /E/ closer to /æ/).

I myself pronounce "temperature" as /"tEmpr@tSr=/ --> ["t_hE~:m.pr\@.tS@`], for the record. Anyways, though, Kirk, it's interesting that you locally have a shift from /E/ to /{/, as that seem to be the complete opposite of things here, where /{/ seems to often get merged with /E/ when unstressed, not by lowering /E/, but by raising /{/.

Kirk,

Oops! Open mouth, insert foot. How gauche of me to criticize your pronunciation. What I say, using your example, is something like /tEmpr@tS@r/, except that the final vowel isn't really the same as the second vowel. It's more like a "u". And there's some little bit of a vowel between the "p" and the "r". Oh...could it be an "e"? No, actually, the "per" part sounds like "per" (or "purr"), just shortening the vowel. It's comparable to the way I say my name -- not "Deb-ra," and not "De-bo-ra", but with a bit of a vowel. I wish I knew what that particular sound is called, or how to symbolize it.

"You're 'close' to the door, so would you 'close' it please?
The child took a 'bow' after he finally learned to tie a 'bow'.

Are these pronounced differently? how?"

The first 'close' with [s], the second 'close' with [z].
The first 'bow' pronounced as 'bough', the second 'bow' rhyming with 'so'.

still puzzled check this out:

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861592149

and

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861592148

rich7, no wonder you're puzzled. The pronciation for bow (1) (your second link) is incorrect. Someone just goofed.

pronciation = pronunciation

No, I think the dictionary has the pronunciations right. It says the verb is pronounced "bow" and the noun is pronounced "bō" (using their transcription system).

Where I have "ō" above, I was trying to represent an O with a straight line over it, which in the dictionary's transcription system represents a long O.

Lazar, I listened to the pronunciations in the two links, and they're identical. They both sound like "bough".

"How gauche of me to criticize your pronunciation."

Deborah, don't feel bad, I wasn't offended at all :)

"Anyways, though, Kirk, it's interesting that you locally have a shift from /E/ to /{/, as that seem to be the complete opposite of things here, where /{/ seems to often get merged with /E/ when unstressed, not by lowering /E/, but by raising /{/."

Yeah, in some ways the California Vowel shift involves a chain shift that's going pretty much the opposite direction of the Northern Cities vowels. Maybe that's one reason why the most progressive NCVS accents sound so odd to us, and I'm sure the opposite is true. The fact that both varieties have some similar vowels being affected but going in the opposite direction just increases the distance between the two even more. I guess it's kind of like when two cars are going the opposite direction at 60mph as compared to having one just sit while the other moves. Don't know why I needed to throw in an analogy there but it seemed appropriate.

In terms of the actual production of /E/, it obviously varies per speaker, but it's generally getting lower here, and in some of the most progressive speakers, has already reached a clear /æ/. I've noticed myself sometimes producing [æ] or something close to it, but I'd say I still normally stick closer to [E]. But [I] is lowering closer to [E] so it can't be too close. Combining the changed qualities in vowels like /E/ to /æ/, /U/ to /@/, /A/ to /O/, and /æ/ to /a/ makes for a rapidly emerging unique accent of English here in California. On a side note, this leads to some playful (if somewhat inaccurate, of course) spellings I've seen like "Wow, oh my Gawd, thot's the bast buck I've avver rad!" in imitating speakers most progressed in the CVS.

The main thing is that here there doesn't seem to be the rest of the Northern Cities Shift, just a movement towards an eventual merger of /E/ and /{/, and /E/ doesn't seem to be moving, and most of the other vowels, /{/ aside, seem to be staying put, unlike in the Northern Cities Shift. If anything, it seems to not be part of chainshift, but rather it seems to be moving towards a simple phoneme merger, as there is nothing that would seem to preserve any distinction between what are currently /{/ and /E/ in the future.

Regardless of how words pronunciations have changed over time, it's still sounds annoying. Of course I'm also guilty of of annoying mispronunciations and spellings too. I think I've spelled 'definitely' as 'definately' many a times, for instance. I'm sure offense was taken to that wrong spelling including some of my posts.

>"Definately" for "definitely. <

I tend to make that mistake... sorry MJD won't do it again! :)

This is really a misspelling, but whenever anyone says "loose" instead of "lose", I wish they'd "tighten" whatever they are loosing.