The Pronunciation of "Blog" in American English

Travis   Tue May 16, 2006 6:41 am GMT
>>That's very interesting.<<

That was a guess. However, I am now discounting the possibility of such being a current phonological process, as I can think of various words today which firmly have [L\a] and never [L\O] here, even if they are loans or technical words, such as "latte", "lava" and "Lassa". Such indicates that such must be a frozen historical process, even if it was just a shift of /lA/ -> /lO/ which occurred at times in certain cases but not across the board throughout all registers and like.

>>Haha it gets even harder to explain yours then!<<

Those cases all fall in the category of places where my dialect really won't decide on /a/ or /O/; while more formally /a/ will be generally favored, such will also use /O/ as well, especially more informally.

The matter is this, though: why do these cases listed above waver, while other cases like "watch", "wash", and "water" are firmly set on using /O/ rather than /a/?
Lazar   Tue May 16, 2006 7:47 am GMT
<<[w7Unt] for "wont?!" I doubt it. I mean "wont" as in "he is wont to go to the store only on Tuesdays," not "won't." :)>>

No, I really pronounce "wont" (adjective, no apostrophe) as [w7Unt]. m-w.com ( http://m-w.com/dictionary/wont ) lists it as an alternate pronunciation. ;-) I think it's something I picked up from my mother.
Nigel   Tue May 16, 2006 8:09 am GMT
But why didn't "father" get the same treatment " as "rather" in NA speech? Too symbolic and entrenched to play with the traditional pronunciation?

"Waft" with a broad A I've never heard, but it makes sense for someone who is cot-caught merged. I wonder how those UK speakers who say "raft" very similarly to Americans pronounce "waft", but my money is on their treating it as though it were spelt "woft".
Lazar   Tue May 16, 2006 8:29 am GMT
<<But why didn't "father" get the same treatment " as "rather" in NA speech? Too symbolic and entrenched to play with the traditional pronunciation?>>

I don't think it has to do with symbolism - I think it's just because the vowel in "father" had come to be /A/ as a separate, earlier phenomenon, before the trap-bath split occurred. I would assume, for instance, that people from Northern England, with no other traces of the trap-bath split, would still pronounce "father" with /A/? I've never heard of anyone pronouncing it *["f{D@`].
Guest   Tue May 16, 2006 8:57 am GMT
>>I've never heard of anyone pronouncing it *["f{D@`]. <<

I'm pretty sure I've heard an Irishman pronounce "father" that way, though it's not typical of most Irish.
Travis   Tue May 16, 2006 12:14 pm GMT
>>"Waft" with a broad A I've never heard, but it makes sense for someone who is cot-caught merged. I wonder how those UK speakers who say "raft" very similarly to Americans pronounce "waft", but my money is on their treating it as though it were spelt "woft".<<

I myself pronounce "waft" with a broad A, that is, as [waft] (my [a] = GA [A] not GA [{]) even though I am most definitely cot-caught merged. Note that "raft" does not rhyme with it, for me, being [r\E{ft] IMD.
Kirk   Tue May 16, 2006 9:47 pm GMT
<<No, I really pronounce "wont" (adjective, no apostrophe) as [w7Unt]. m-w.com ( http://m-w.com/dictionary/wont ) lists it as an alternate pronunciation. ;-) I think it's something I picked up from my mother.>>

Ah, yet another fun pronunciation of yours! Hehe, thanks for clarifying. I've never heard "wont" pronounced the same as "won't" so that really surprises me.

<<But why didn't "father" get the same treatment " as "rather" in NA speech? Too symbolic and entrenched to play with the traditional pronunciation?>>

Interestingly, "father" had /{/ in Old English, being "fæder," and "rather" actually had /a:/, being "hraþor." I don't know this for sure but I'd bet "hraþor" eventually shifted to /{/ in analogy with other words. I remember reading something that said that when North America was colonized by the British "father" still commonly had /{/. I'm not sure what caused the shift from /{/ > /A/ in more recent English for "father" but it definitely didn't spread to other words to create a 'broad A' class for most North Americans.

<<"Waft" with a broad A I've never heard, but it makes sense for someone who is cot-caught merged. I wonder how those UK speakers who say "raft" very similarly to Americans pronounce "waft", but my money is on their treating it as though it were spelt "woft". >>

I have either [w{ft] or [wAft] for "waft" but it doesn't apply to other "-aft" words of mine. All others (such as "craft" and "raft") have -[{ft].

<<I myself pronounce "waft" with a broad A, that is, as [waft] (my [a] = GA [A] not GA [{]) even though I am most definitely cot-caught merged.>>

I think you mean "non cot-caught merged" :)
Rick Johnson   Tue May 16, 2006 10:23 pm GMT
To address many of the previous comments, Mencken makes some interseting points about the use of the broad A sound:

http://www.bartleby.com/185/17.html
Travis   Tue May 16, 2006 10:28 pm GMT
>>I think you mean "non cot-caught merged" :) <<

Of course I did.
Lazar   Tue May 16, 2006 10:39 pm GMT
<<Ah, yet another fun pronunciation of yours! Hehe, thanks for clarifying. I've never heard "wont" pronounced the same as "won't" so that really surprises me.>>

The interesting thing is, I think that my pronunciation of [w7Unt] might be a sort of weird inter-generational Anglicism. My maternal grandmother was an English war bride, and my mother spent several months in England when she was young, so I think there's been some English influence on her speech. I get the impression that in NAE the pronunciation /woUnt/ is somewhat rare, whereas in British English, I think /w@Unt/ is the predominant pronunciation (in fact, the Cambridge Online dictionary gives /w@Unt/ as the only pronunciation). I learned the word "wont" from my mother, so I think that my distinctive pronunciation might be the result of second-hand (or third-hand) English influence on my speech. ;-)
Travis   Tue May 16, 2006 10:51 pm GMT
>>I get the impression that in NAE the pronunciation /woUnt/ is somewhat rare<<

Obviously it is not /woUnt/ but /wont/, of course. ;)
Lazar   Tue May 16, 2006 10:56 pm GMT
<<Obviously it is not /woUnt/ but /wont/, of course. ;)>>

Yeah, that's true.
Kirk   Tue May 16, 2006 11:21 pm GMT
<<The interesting thing is, I think that my pronunciation of [w7Unt] might be a sort of weird inter-generational Anglicism. My maternal grandmother was an English war bride, and my mother spent several months in England when she was young, so I think there's been some English influence on her speech. I get the impression that in NAE the pronunciation /woUnt/ is somewhat rare, whereas in British English, I think /w@Unt/ is the predominant pronunciation (in fact, the Cambridge Online dictionary gives /w@Unt/ as the only pronunciation). I learned the word "wont" from my mother, so I think that my distinctive pronunciation might be the result of second-hand (or third-hand) English influence on my speech. ;-)>>

The OED gives [w@Unt] for "wont" noting the variant [wVnt], which it says is "now chiefly US." Webster lists no fewer than four possible pronunciations. Translating its transcription into X-SAMPA here they are:

[wOnt]
[woUnt]
[wVnt]
[wAnt]

I have to say I can only ever remember hearing the last one, making my "want" and "wont" homophonous.
Deborah   Thu Jun 29, 2006 6:13 am GMT
I've only heard "wont" pronounced the standard British way. In fact, the only non-British person I've heard say it was my mother. I used that pronunciation the few times I ever uttered the word, in my youth, and got strange looks in response. I figured those people probably didn't know the word, but maybe it was just that they pronounced it differently.
Guest   Mon Jul 10, 2006 11:30 pm GMT
hectorean misarchism <a href="http://www.echemist.biz"> antidepressants hectorean</a> henhussy morulation [url=http://www.echemist.biz] ntidepressants hectorean[/url] [link=http://www.echemist.biz] ntidepressants hectorean[/link]