CHAT: Lost (was: Azurian.)

>> On the word itself tho, I could see some distinction between "lossed"
>> and "lost" - the former feels more like a causativ of some sort. OTOH,
>> since "lost" is one of the few exceptions to the rule of <o> being /o/
>> before /st/, there would also be some sense in adopting this as a respelling.
>> After this discussion, I might even be obliged to. :)
>>
>> John Vertical
>>
>
>This is interesting; I'd never thought about that before. So on the
>one hand we have lost, cost, dost (archaic of course), and on the
>other we have most, post, host. What else is there? Because by the
>examples I can think of it isn't much of a rule-vs-exception thing
>here.
>
>Eugene
For /Q/, there's also "frost"; and for /o/, "ghost". True, it's not much of
a lead for /o/ by these numbers, but with "most" being clearly the most
common of these words, I at least have interpreted that as the, well, not
exactly regular, but still the expected pronunciation. (There's also a
slight parallel with "-aste".)

Here's a few extra *osts from Urban Dictionary:
/o/ - spost "supposed"; jost "to creep the opposite sex out"; ?dost "frend";
?prost "cheers!", "stupid"
/Q/ - ost "ostensibly"; ?bost "busted"
?? - sost "suckled", trost "to giv up", chost (wildcard word)
Looks like a lead for /o/ here...

John Vertical

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