Re: "write him" was Re: More questions

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 21:32:39 -0500, Tristan McLeay <zsau@...>
wrote:

> The thing I'm more concerned about: in dialects that use 'faucet' and
> distinguish short o from au (i.e. say bot and bought differently), which
> vowel does faucet have? When we happen to make use of the word, generally
> when talking about American words, we use a short o.
My experience tells me something like /fAsIt/ in the local accent (but it's
not a British /A/) and thus /fQsIt/ in mine, but my inner monologue insists
on /fOsIt/ when it sees the word detached from context.

> There are three
> possible explanations for it: it's irregular and pronounced with a short
> o
> everywhere; as in loss or caustic,
I have /lQs/ and /kOstIk/ -- *NB* not /kO:stIk/ which is only produced in
over-careful speech.

Actually, the combining form of /kOstIk/ is indeed /kQstIk/ (or maybe even
/kQst1k/ ?) as in /kQstIk soud@/, but the non-compund form is pretty
certainly /kOstIk/

> the /o:s/ became /Os/; it has been
> borrowed from American English, whose au sounds almost identical to our
> short o (e.g. I had to translate from American English /stOk/ to AusE
> /sto:k/---stalk---last night for my brother while watching tv, because
> 'stock' didn't make sense in context).
FWIW, I think you are writing /o/ where /Q/ is meant, but AusE might really
be that weird, so I sha'n't insist.





Paul

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