Re: tlhn'ks't, ngghlyam'ft, and other scary words

Tristan scripsit:

> He's already got 'borough' in the list once, and /bVrou/ (which I've
> never heard, but you and John assure me that it exists) would be dealt
> with by 'though', wouldn't it?
The point of treating "borough" separately from "though" is precisely that
some dialects make it schwa, whereas others make it the long sound of "o",
so it's a separate diaphoneme.

I omitted the unique case of "hiccough".  Technically, "hough" and "lough" are
also separate cases, since some pronounce "lough" with [x], whereas AFAIK no one
does that with "hough".  I'm not sure what RI does with "lough"; changing it to
"lock" would cause a serious semantic collision.

--
"May the hair on your toes never fall out!"     John Cowan
        --Thorin Oakenshield (to Bilbo)         jcowan@reutershealth.com

Reply