Book and buck, look and luck

Guest   Sun Apr 30, 2006 11:43 pm GMT
I'm still confused about the pronunciations of "back" and "buck" from this dialog........

http://media.putfile.com/Backbuck

Do you say it like that?
Rick Johnson   Mon May 01, 2006 9:03 am GMT
<<I'm still confused about the pronunciations of "back" and "buck" from this dialog........

http://media.putfile.com/Backbuck

Do you say it like that?>>

I can't understand a word they are saying
Guest   Mon May 01, 2006 9:22 am GMT
>>
http://media.putfile.com/Backbuck
<<

I think he says: "you back Bucks and I'll back books, right?"
Rick Johnson   Mon May 01, 2006 1:39 pm GMT
Thinking about it, I there not probably not pure homophones as the "u" sound in luck is slightly deeper than look, but they pretty close.

I think this might be the reason why Austalians are confused; I would go deeper to say buck than book, but Australians do the opposite going higher for buck than book. So when I talk about something being "50 bucks", they hear "50 books"............or at least that's how my pronunciation used to be before it got b^ggered ^p!!
Guest   Wed May 03, 2006 3:54 am GMT
The British-sounding man in the recording DOES distinguish between "bucks" and "books". The foreigner has a continental pronunciation of the words i.e. /baks/ for both "backs" and "bucks".
Guest   Wed May 03, 2006 8:20 am GMT
<<So when I talk about something being "50 bucks", they hear "50 books".>>

That is because you pronounce "buck" as "book"; of course they would hear "50 books". You're clearly the one at fault, but at least you probably don't pronounce "book" as boooooooooooook" as some Scottish persons do.