Re: OT: YAEPT: English low vowels (was briefly: Re: Y/N variants (< OT: English a...

Herman Miller wrote:
> ROGER MILLS wrote:
>> Mark Reed wrote:
>>> I was looking for the term for the "ah" sound, and went by this page:
>>>
>>> http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~anth383/lexicalsets.html
>>>
>> Interesting, useful and illuminating! With minor exceptions (to be
>> expected I guess), it matches my lect.
>>
>> Disagree on: pulse-- FOOT not STRUT
>> cuckoo-- GOOSE not FOOT (this IMO is a genuine error-- the international
>> word is [kuku] with variable stress, no?)
>
> I think I may have heard the FOOT pronunciation of cuckoo -- probably on
> a bird song recording (but definitely not American). It's ['kuku] for
> me, although more often used in the phrase "cuckoo clock" since the
> birds are not common sights anywhere I've lived.
I've never heard the pronunciation /ku\:ku\:/ (GOOSE-GOOSE) for "cuckoo"
before; it's always been /"kuku\:/ (FOOT-GOOSE). Considering the
spelling indicates a short vowel for the first syllable, I seriously
doubt that using the same vowel for both syllables could be the
international pronunciation.

/"ku\:"ku\:/ (GOOSE-GOOSE) was, however, a word I used when I was
younger to mean crazy. I've never before had reason to spell it, but I'd
try to do it as "kookoo" or "koo-koo" I think, based on "kook" even tho
the kind of craziness is entirely different.

--
Tristan.

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