About English Dictionaries (British & American)

Woozle   Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:36 pm GMT
"Tom, can you present clips of people pronouncing "bot" and "bought" in what you consider the "normal" American pronunciation? "


No clips, but the "Phonological history of English low back vowels" Wikipedia article discusses the so-called 'cot-caught merger' and has a map of N. America from which it appears that the merger is almost complete in the western states, is becoming more widespread in the mid-west and only holds strong in the NY-Washington area.
Tom   Thu Sep 03, 2009 1:12 am GMT
Johnny,
There is no disagreement between us. I use an old Random House (for native speakers) all the time and in fact I recommend that learners have a comprehensive dictionary like that at their disposal.

Luke,
You are great! Your message prompted me to look for a patch, and sure enough, here it is:
http://www.pearsonlongman.com/dictionaries/support/ldoce5-support.html

Now I'm going to have to test the patch and update the review.
KK   Thu Sep 03, 2009 5:40 am GMT
Tom, Why don't carry out a review for Merriam Webster's Advanced ?
Tom   Thu Sep 03, 2009 5:59 pm GMT
Updated review with information on the LDOCE patch. The Longman's score went up from C- to C as a result.

KK, as far as I know the M-W Advanced Learner's Dictionary is available as a free online dictionary, not a CD/DVD dictionary.
LadyViolet   Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:27 pm GMT
can you present clips of people pronouncing "bot" and "bought" in what you consider the "normal" American pronunciation...
...

There is no ''normal'' pronunciation, both are accepted the older (unmerged), and the newer (merged)...
Sometimes, it's easy to tell where an actor is from just by listening to his accent. Let's say the pronunciation of the name ROSS (from ''Friends'')...

Ross (merged/unrounded [rɑs ], unmerged/rounded [ rɔs ]).
Next time you watch Friends, pay attention to how they pronounce ROSS, and which actors use which pronunciation...

Some unmerged pronunciations are very weird, for exmple
[jutɔ] instead of [jutɑ] (for Utah).


in situations with no shifts:
the opposition
traditional merged Western dialect ~ traditional unmerged eastern dialects
merged/unmerged is related to unrounded ~ rounded pronunciation

but you have to have a pair to compare

doll ~ call [dɑl ~ kɑl] (Denver, Erie PA, St. John's NF)
doll ~ call [dɑl ~ kɔl] (NYC, Washington DC)
doll ~ call [dal ~ kɑl] (Chicago)
doll ~ call [dæl ~ kɑl] (Detroit, Buffalo)
doll ~ call [dɒl ~ kɒl] (Vancouver, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, Boston)

A simple word like DOLL (or DOLLAR) can have 4 different pronunciations in Northern American English:

[dɒl, dɑl, dal, dæl]
LadyViolet   Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:48 pm GMT
It's always easier with two word expresions:

merged:

1. hot dog [hät däg] (Tucson AZ, St. John's NF ''low central merger''))
2. hot dog [hɑt dɑg] (Most of Western US, and Central Ohio/Indiana)
3. hot dog [hɒt dɒg] (many Canadians and Bostonians)


unmerged:

1. hot dog [hɑt dɔg] (NYC, NJ, Washington DC)
2. hot dog [hät dɒg] (transitional areas in Midwest/Florida)
3. hot dog [hat dɑg] (General Pronunciation in the Great Lakes area)
4. hot dog [hæt dɑg] (white younger females from Detroit and Chicago)


------------ɔ high
æ--------ɒ
--a--ä--ɑ low

front back

(only ɒ and ɔ are rounded)


You can try the same thing with COFFEE SHOP, DOLL MALL,
WRONG SONG IN HONG KONG,
etc...
H   Fri Sep 04, 2009 6:31 am GMT
The M-W I happened to see had a very odd sort of transcription, very different from Longman's or Collins's. I don't think it's good for foreigners.
doom   Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:12 am GMT
The M-W I happened to see had a very odd sort of transcription, very different from Longman's or Collins's. I don't think it's good for foreigners.

any examples?
KK   Fri Sep 04, 2009 9:50 am GMT
Tom:
as far as I know the M-W Advanced Learner's Dictionary is available as a free online dictionary, not a CD/DVD dictionary.

I heard that, if you bought its paper dictionary, you could download the software, if not, people don't have access to it, perhaps, the software is different (better) than the online edtion. And it's as helpful to comment on M-W advanced dictionary (paper edition) as the other dictionaries.
KK   Fri Sep 04, 2009 10:52 am GMT
Free E-book Download for Book Purchasers

Purchasers of Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary are eligible to download the Mobipocket e-book version of the dictionary for free—a $29.95 value.

For verification purposes, please enter your e-mail address below, then open your copy of the Learner's Dictionary and enter one of the guide words you see at the top of page 879.

After you click "Submit" a registration code will be displayed with instructions for redeeming the code to download your free Learner's Dictionary e-book. You will also receive this information via e-mail.
Milton   Fri Sep 04, 2009 3:15 pm GMT
''The M-W I happened to see had a very odd sort of transcription, very different from Longman's or Collins's. I don't think it's good for foreigners''.

The newest MW learner's dic. uses normal IPA transcription:

for example: ball /ˈbɑ:l/
http://www.learnersdictionary.com/search/BALL
Tom   Mon Sep 07, 2009 1:11 am GMT
About the "normal" pronunciation... check out the clips from M-W, for example:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/top
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tall

It's best to learn the accent that you will keep hearing on TV. This is certainly not a merged accent.

BTW, it is certainly not true that "most of Western US" pronounces "hot dog" /hɑt dɑg/. Have you ever been to Western US, LadyViolet?

Besides, some learners might get the idea that if you get on a plane in New York and get off in Los Angeles, the accent you hear is going to change radically. This is just not true. Talking about a "Washington DC" or a "New York" accent is kind of misleading, because what percentage of people in DC and NY actually have that accent? Maybe old people who were born there and spent their entire lives there. Most Americans live in several states during their lifetime and lose their local accents. Certainly those who appear on TV lose their accents.

So please stop talking about 4 different pronunciations of "doll" in American English. There are only two standard ones: /dɑ:l/ and /dɒ:l/. The nonstandard regional ones are of interest only to linguists, not to learners.