the valley girls

I mean, [@I], to be a pedant, as that's a phone, not a phoneme, specifically.

Ok, my 'huoose' thing was bad, so I'll transcribe it like this (XSampa and the other systems make absolutely no sense to me)...think hoos (stereotypical Canadian raising) but with a schwa-type sound before the 'oo'...if that makes any sense...And the typical 'haUs' pronunciation sounds very forced and over-done to me.

Off topic...why is New Jersey called Jersey when there already is a Jersey and New York, New Hampshire, and New Mexico aren't called York, Hampshire, and Mexico?

Actually, though, what you're describing, american nic, is actually the typical Canadian pattern (Canadians generally do *not* really say things like "hoos" (that is, [hus]) in this case, unlike what some may thing). Anyways, though, I myself really like things like X-SAMPA, as they allow a far more accurate and specific description of pronunciation, while not requiring the entry of Unicode characters or like, and without some kind of subjective comparison of how different things are pronounced in different dialects and like.

Yeah, I know how Canadians say house (just like me :)), I was just comparing it to the stereotypical pronunciation for comparison...is there somewhere I could learn this X-SAMPA?

american nic, I think "hoos" with a schwa before the "oo" is a very goog description.

I mean, a very good description. (It might also be a goog description, but I don't know what "goog" means.)

american nic, a good guide to X-SAMPA can be found at Wikipedia at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-SAMPA

Well thanks, I always try for the most goog. :)

Ok, awesome...now I can actually communicate here...

Another important note, just in case you aren't already familiar with it (but don't take offense if you already do know this), is that when you have X-SAMPA (or whatever, for example, say, IPA, or Kirshenbaum) symbols that are between slashes, that is, / /, they indicate phonemic (also called broad) transcription, whereas if they are between brackets, thats, [ ], they indicate phonetic (also called narrow) transcription. The two are generally not interchangeable, as phonemes generally distinguish meaning, and do not actually indicate the sounds said, whereas phones themselves actually mark the actual sounds said, but many aspects of such are often irrelevant to the actual meaning conveyed (for example, aspiration of unvoiced stops in English shows up in a regular pattern unlinked with the specific phonemes in use, and conveys no meaning itself).

Bill >> Not all of us do. Many of us say [fig j..r]

My mistake; as a non-rhotic type I forgot to render it rhotically. In easy-to-understand unofficial phonetics, would fig-yerr be close to your preferred pronunciation?

While my question was actually about the intrusive "y" or [j] as you prefer, your response has highlighted one of the major differences between English and American: American is rhotic, English is not.

I myself pronounce "figure" as /fIgjr=/ (--> [fI.gjr=]) which is, yes, how you describe it above. However, I myself prefer to use X-SAMPA for describing things, because it's more clear for specifying the specifics of how something is pronounced, and doesn't have the problem of one having to guess what someone really specifically means when they're specifying how something is pronounced in a given case, which is a major problem in many cases in practice.

Yes, fig-yerr sounds pretty good.

Well, not all American English dialects are rhotic, and especially historically, nonrhotic dialects were more prevalent in the US than they are today, due to the spread of rhoticism from rhotic dialects to various nonrhotic dialects in the US as a whole. Hence one really cannot speak of American English dialects as being *exclusively* rhotic in general, especially historically, even though they very well may be primarily (but not solely) rhotic today.