Spellings of 'serious-Sirius' and 'Tory-torrent'
Is there a (semi-)consistent spelling difference between these sets? As far as I can tell, my /ir/ corresponds to RP /Ir/ when: a. It is spelled 'irr' before a vowel (mirror), except when derived from a word ending in 'ir' (stirring). b. It comes from a word with 'ir' followed by a vowel in Latin (spirit) or c. It is spelled 'yr' (lyric).
For Tory-torrent, I'm a little less sure. Everything with 'orr' seems to be /Qr/ (like 'sorry'), but not every thing with 'or' followed by a vowel is /Or/ (forest). Words with '-ory' (when stressed on the second-to-last syllable) seem to all be /Or/, but are there any rules to explain why 'forest' and 'orange' have /Qr/?
Yeah, I think your "serious-Sirius" spelling rules are pretty good.
As for "Tory-torrent", maybe it's that French- (and Latin-) derived words with "or"+vowel use /Qr/? But then again, there is "story", with /O/, and even the variation in RP between "historian" with /O/ and "historic" with /Q/. And then there's the Greek-derived word "chorus", where RP uses /O/.
I have:
"serious" [sI_rr\jUs]
"Sirius" [sI_rr\jUs]
"torrent" [tor\nt]
"tory" [tor\i]
What did one star say to the other?
Are you Sirius?
On a related note: When I was in elementary school, I had to read a book in which a girl was named Erin. She was talking to a boy, and he said that he thought Erin was a man's name, like "Erin in the Bible". I thought that was weird when I read it, because I hadn't heard of anyone in the Bible named Erin. It was only about a couple years ago, once I had learned more about American English dialects, that I realized that the boy in the book was confusing Erin with Aaron. In my dialect I have:
Erin ["Er\In]
Aaron ["{r\@n]
Just curious, how is your name pronounced? Is it [l{zr\=]?
Haha, that question has come up in the past. Many people's intuitive guess is that it's /l@"zAr/, and some people I've known have thought it was /"lezr=/, but I think your suggestion /"l{zr=/ is a first. ;-)
It's actually pronounced /"lezAr/, rhyming with "quasar". The name (in written form) is essentially the Romanian and Slavic version of "Lazarus", with my family's pronunciation maybe influenced by the Yiddish version "Leizer". Long story.
I have a complete serious-Sirius merger and tory-torrent merger.
It wasn't until I learned about phonetics and phonology that I learned some people make a distinction between these pairs of words.
Lazar,
I thought it was /"leIz@`/, rhyming with razor ;-)