"get", "Wendy", "pretty", &quo

Manx   Fri May 11, 2007 12:47 am GMT
I pronounce them as if they were "git", "Windy", "pritty" and "gist". As far as I know, General American has /E/ for all these words. Which pronunciation do you use?
Manx   Fri May 11, 2007 12:48 am GMT
That last word was "guest".
Sarcastic Northwesterner   Fri May 11, 2007 1:00 am GMT
I disagree that General American has /E/ for all of those. I pronounce them like you do, and so do most natives around here. And if we don't speak General American, I don't know what we speak. I've also heard them used on tv and movies too.
Manx   Fri May 11, 2007 1:02 am GMT
I agree. Using /E/ in most of these does sound quite off to me.
Josh Lalonde   Fri May 11, 2007 1:22 am GMT
<<I disagree that General American has /E/ for all of those. I pronounce them like you do, and so do most natives around here. And if we don't speak General American, I don't know what we speak. I've also heard them used on tv and movies too.>>

I'm not sure if the Northwest can really be said to speak GenAm, because of the cot-caught merger. I have to say that [gIt], [wIndi], and [gIst] sound strange to me, though I'm certainly not a GenAm speaker (fairly close though). 'Pretty' has the KIT vowel in all accents I've heard of; it's ["pv\.I4i] for me.
Lazar   Fri May 11, 2007 1:36 am GMT
I have:

get ["gEt]
Wendy ["wEndi]
guest ["gEst]
pretty ["p_hr\I4i]

"Pretty" really shouldn't be included with the others, because it has [I] in all major dialects.

<<I disagree that General American has /E/ for all of those.>>

Sarcastic Northwesterner, how many times are we going to rehash this old argument? General American definitely does have /E/ for those words. /I/ occurs as a regional variation in many areas, but it's by no means predominant in North America. Like Josh I'm not a General American speaker, but for what it's worth, /I/ does sound strange to me in those words.
Lazar   Fri May 11, 2007 1:37 am GMT
Sorry, "regional variation" should be "regional innovation".
Manx   Fri May 11, 2007 1:42 am GMT
<<Sarcastic Northwesterner, how many times are we going to rehash this old argument? General American definitely does have /E/ for those words. /I/ occurs as a regional variation in many areas, but it's by no means predominant in North America. Like Josh I'm not a General American speaker, but for what it's worth, /I/ does sound strange to me in those words.>>

I guess I'll just have to listen carefully next time I hear a Wendy's commercial to see what pronunciation is used. When I actually go to Wendy's, I universally hear "Welcome to [wIndiz]".
Travis   Fri May 11, 2007 1:48 am GMT
I myself also have [E] in all of these words except "pretty", having [gE?], ["wE~:ndi:], ["p_hr\I:i] (carefully ["p_hr\I4i:]), and ["gEst]. From what I know, General American has /E/ in all these words except "pretty", where it has /I/.

>>I disagree that General American has /E/ for all of those. I pronounce them like you do, and so do most natives around here. And if we don't speak General American, I don't know what we speak. I've also heard them used on tv and movies too.<<

The Northwest is not the entirety of North America, which you seem to have overlooked, and just because you think speak General American does not mean you do. Not that many North Americans today speak General American today, as most General American-like dialects today have innovations such as the cot-caught merger, the pin-pen merger, or the shifting of /E/ in many words to /I/.
Manx   Fri May 11, 2007 1:55 am GMT
<<Not that many North Americans today speak General American today, as most General American-like dialects today have innovations such as the cot-caught merger, the pin-pen merger, or the shifting of /E/ in many words to /I/.>>

For some reason people with strong regional dialects like to claim that "not many North Americans speak General American". As they don't speak it, they like to claim that virtually no one does. If General American-like dialects aren't General American, then you can pretty much say that General American doesn't exist to start with.
Lazar   Fri May 11, 2007 2:01 am GMT
Here's a recent Wendy's commercial ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=rrSiyri5G48 ). The narrator says "Wendy's" at 00:18, and he uses [E].

And here's another one ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=ftzG5OPTQVw&mode=related&search= ). The narrator says "Wendy's" at 00:02 and 00:24, and in both cases she definitely uses [E].

Here is what appears to be an amateur Wendy's commercial ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=7PgKVcbkkC8 ). The speaker says "Wendy's" at 00:36, and he clearly uses [E].
Manx   Fri May 11, 2007 2:23 am GMT
For some reason it takes a long time for my computer to load those commercials.
Shatnerian   Fri May 11, 2007 2:36 am GMT
I think we've done this one before, but I pronounce all of those words using [E]. I also agree that [I] sounds strange, but I have heard it used by more than a few people.

For the record, I don't speak General American. What the hell is General American, though? No one can ever agree on what features are included or not included in this "dialect".
Travis   Fri May 11, 2007 3:20 am GMT
>>For some reason people with strong regional dialects like to claim that "not many North Americans speak General American". As they don't speak it, they like to claim that virtually no one does. If General American-like dialects aren't General American, then you can pretty much say that General American doesn't exist to start with.<<

The reason for this kind of position on my part is that I prefer to treat General American as a relatively fixed variety to which other varieties can be effectively compared, rather than a catchall including all varieties that do not sound too accented to the average North American. Using it as a catchall really limits its effectiveness as something to compare and contrast other dialects with

Also remember that General American corresponds to what was spoken in approximately the southwestern Midwest about the end of WW2. There have been innovations since that point of time and in dialects approximating such at that time, so hence the extent of such is not what it was fifty years ago. The cot-caught merger is not very widespread in dialects close to General American, and the pin-pen merger has spread since fifty years ago into many dialects that are otherwise not all too far from General American.
Travis   Fri May 11, 2007 1:29 pm GMT
I meant to say "The cot-caught merger is very widespread in dialects close to General American" above.