Libel-Bible split

?   Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:10 pm GMT
In this survey http://home.unilang.org/main/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6488&start=0&sid=929d60cecee50ded9b6e2a45886c3036 going on a lot of people have written that they make a distinction between the ''i's'' in ''libel'' and ''Bible'' and two of them are Australians. So, here is my question:

Is there a split in the PRICE vowel thats going on in Australian English? If so, into what two vowels?

In other words, How is the distinction made betweem the ''i's'' in ''libel'' and ''Bible''?
Jim   Wed Jul 13, 2005 1:40 am GMT
There is no split. There are three possibilities that I can think of.

1) This person has a very odd way of speaking.
2) This person had been thinking of "liable".
3) This person is a troll.
?   Wed Jul 13, 2005 1:43 am GMT
''2) This person had been thinking of "liable".''

It's more than one person though. More than one person on that thread has claimed that they make a distinction between the vowels in ''libel'' and ''Bible''.

Are all of those people on that thread trolls? That's possible.
Jim   Wed Jul 13, 2005 4:07 am GMT
You're certain it's more than one person. It's also possible that it's one troll with two fake names. I recall seeing a bunch of posts written under a whole bunch of different names but seeming to be the work of one troll: it could even be this very same troll. Anyway, it still would be possible for more than one person to make the same mistake, yes. Have none of your mistakes been made by anyone else before?
Kirk   Wed Jul 13, 2005 4:32 am GMT
<<I recall seeing a bunch of posts written under a whole bunch of different names but seeming to be the work of one troll: it could even be this very same troll.>>

Yes--this troll has been present on antimoon, unilang, and lingcafe (the newly named forum that grew out of the temporary antimoon forum). The name he more consistently goes by is Don, but he's had tons of aliases. As discussed here, we had to ban him and his ip address from lingcafe:

http://14.freebb.com/viewtopic.php?t=134&freebb=antimoonbis

You may have noticed almost the exact same survey was put up here recently on antimoon, too, and has consistently shown up on antimoon for months. He also is the infamous troll who kept on introducing the spelling reform topics from Schoonmaker's site--something he did almost weekly for several months on antimoon.

The current antimoon topic about Americans and the /O/ sound has also suspiciously shown up on unilang under the alias "Jordan." I've seen his posts often enough to recognize his writing style and they've shown up on several other aliases at antimoon and unilang also. Just a warning.

Anyone is always welcome to join us at lingcafe, where we have better control over trolls (no pun intended) because you can sign up instead of posting anonymously as here at antimoon, meaning no one can impersonate you. You can also post as an anonymous guest if you so wish, but since we the administrators and moderators keep close tabs on suspicious guests with the ability to see their ip addresses, we've kept trolls to a minimum, whereas they're all over the place even in the supposedly "updated" antimoon.

So, basically, this thread is pointless, as it was started by a troll who was referring to a post which in and of itself was the work of troll activity.
Tom K.   Wed Jul 13, 2005 7:46 pm GMT
Is this split really just invented by some troll? I have a hard time believing that everyone who answered the survey were trolls.
Tom K.   Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:28 pm GMT
I've been trying to get to the bottom of this issue lately. First, I posted my own minimal pair test on the WordReference forum, and one of the pairs was indeed "libel/bible." I haven't gotten any responses from Australians yet, however I did get two responses from Phillippines natives who both indicated that, for them, "libel" and "bible" were different. Check it out: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=38438&page=2

I also posted a query about it on the Linguist List. I'll let you know about the replies.
Tom K.   Thu Jul 21, 2005 1:41 am GMT
Alright, it looks like I won't be getting any more replies to my Linguist List post, so here's what I got. Unfortunately, I couldn't get much more information.

This is from Anne Morrison:
"I am a speaker of Australian English and so is my husband (we speak the the South Australian "variant", in case you find differences).
We both consider that libel/bible are a minimal pair. We also feel that the vowel sound in "bread" is slightly longer that the vowel sound in "bred"."

Yes, I also asked about bred/bread.
Tom K.   Thu Jul 21, 2005 1:43 am GMT