Re: more English orthography

Re my (probably) affected pronunciation of "water"and "rather", John Cowan
wrote:
>It sounds like you are using /A/ to describe a *rounded* back vowel, which
>is properly /Q/.  /A/ is the unrounded back vowel; /a/ is the unrounded
>central vowel.

Quite likely in the case of "water", due to the /w/(?), and formerly VERY
likely as I tried to kill that nasal midwestern [a:] which was parodied as
[æ:~] :-((.  "Rather", however, has always rhymed with "father", as near as
I could get to RP as heard in assorted British flicks......

At a class reunion a couple years ago (my first since graduation a LONG time
ago), I was astonished to find that some of my former tormentors had become
quite decent human beings.