Re: "write him" was Re: More questions

On Thu, Nov 27, 2003 at 09:32:39PM -0500, Tristan McLeay wrote:
> Neither the words 'stop-cock' (well, maybe this does, but I've never heard
> it, but IANA plumber) nor 'faucet' exist in Oz; we call them 'taps'. Most
> people would turn the tap off, though I have heard 'close the tap'.
An oddity (to me) of my wife's pronunciation is that she sometimes says
"close the light" to mean "turn the light off".

> 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)
In my 'lect I don't normally distinguish, pronouncing both [A], but if I
put myself in the mode or mood to make that distinction, then "faucet"
falls squarely in [O] territory.

> 'Valve' is such a technical term.
Over here it is "stopcock" which is the technical term, referring to a
very specific type of pipe-stopping device, whereas "valve" is more general.
"Valve" isn't restricted usage-wise to the metal-on-metal devices John
mentioned, although they are the archetypical "valve" that probably
springs to mind absent other context.

-Mark