"to put down" usage

I have uploaded my version of the Comma passage again at:

http://media.putfile.com/Comma-reading-by-Travis

So Josh , what you say about Travis's accent. It seems to me that my life will not be wasted on the bet...haha :)

All rise! The Honourable Josh Lalonde presiding!...
As I said, I've never heard a North Korean accent, but I've heard South Koreans, and this doesn't really sound like them. I understand why you think Travis sounds Asian; l-vocalisation and the elision of [4] are characteristic of Asian ESL speakers as well. The intonation however, is very different from any ESL Asians I've spoken to, and is basically the same as General American.
I have to say that your accent is more different from mine than I expected. Intervocalic l-vocalisation is a whole different kettle of fish than post-vocalic, and dominates my perception of your accent. Other important differences, like the NCVS and your [R] realisation of /r/ are much less salient for me; I barely noticed them.
In short: sorry, Guest, he doesn't sound Korean, but I understand why you might say that. Although you did bet your life on it, I'll commute sentence to a lifetime supply of chocolate to the court and all parties involved. Case closed!

PS. I posted my own sample here: http://media.putfile.com/Comma-Passage

>>Other important differences, like the NCVS and your [R] realisation of /r/ are much less salient for me; I barely noticed them.<<

I do tend to have a relatively weak NCVS, all things considered, (the main part of the NCVS that I have quite strongly is the shift of [A] to [a], and while I do have a glide in [E{] unlike GA [{] it is not that long of a glide in most cases) and even to me, [r\] and my [R_o] do not *sound* all that different from each other even if they are *articulated* very differently from each other except when I really stress it (due to it becoming more fricative than approximant in nature).

That said, when I listen to my own speech samples, intervocalic and prevocalic l-vocalization *really* stick out even to myself, whereas I am so used to postvocalic l-vocalization that I do not really notice it (except for the realization of /old/ as [oUd] simply due to how close it gets to /od/ -> [od], with the diphthong [oU] being less backed than that from /ol/ in most cases). But when actually speaking or hearing other individuals here speak, I do not think about them at all the vast majority of the time.

There is another case that I do readily notice in the speech of others or myself while speaking, but which unlike the [oUd] case really sticks out to me, as the realization of light "l" at the start of a word as [M\] or, to a lesser degree, [M\L\]. This pronunciation seems to be rather common here, and yet it still seems somewhat "off" for whatever reason, even if I'm the person using it.

<<This pronunciation seems to be rather common here, and yet it still seems somewhat "off" for whatever reason, even if I'm the person using it.>>

I know what you mean. I have a few of those things too. Like you, I find l-vocalised /ol/ sounds strange before a consonant. I have the same thing with /Al/, which I suppose doesn't occur in your dialect. There's a strange variation with [oU], [QU] and [AU] all being legitimate forms in my accent, but each sometimes sounding 'off' for different reasons. These vowels are in fact the ones after which I'm most likely to use [l] as I move up in register. I do this especially when speaking to strangers or older people who are more likely to be confused by the vocalised forms, where 'code' 'cold' and 'called' have similar vowels. My [v\] realisation of /r/ can also sound off to me. It seems to be most likely before tense vowels in /tr/ and /dr/ sequences, and is actually elided sometimes, making 'chain' and 'train' similar in sound.

>>Like you, I find l-vocalised /ol/ sounds strange before a consonant.<<

Such does not sound *strange* to me at all, but it sounds noticable specifically because the [oU] from the sequence /old/ in particular comes extremely close to the diphthongal realizations of /o/ common in many English dialects or even word-finally in careful speech in the dialect here. Consequently "code" [k_ho:d] and "cold" [k_ho:Ud] effectively forms a minimal pair on two phones for which minimal pairs do not normally exist in English dialects.

Note that while I do get [oU] from /ol/ in other positions, the [oU] I normally get is far enough from the usual diphthongal realization of English /o/ as [oU] due to having an offglide to a further back position (as opposed to an offglide to a purely higher position) and a lower degree of rounding. For instance, "colt" [k_hoU?] has my more usual [oU] that is not really noticably "marked" to me, unlike "cold".

/old/ seems to be the only case where I have a "weird" realization of a vowel followed by coda /l/ IMD. All the other ones I do not even intuitively notice as diphthongs unless I really think about them carefully, whereas with /old/ I noticed it as "different" and as being similar to /od/ even before I was really interested in linguistics.

There is actually a dialect in the Rhondda Valley in Wales that distinguishes /o:/ from /oU/, for example in 'toe' vs. 'tow'. They also distinguish /e:/ from /eI/ like 'vane' and 'vein'. I listened to some accent samples and I can barely tell the difference.