Re: Cloakroom

Eric Christopherson wrote:
> On May 13, 2008, at 1:51 PM, Peter Collier wrote:
>> This brings to mind an old joke, which requires some familiarity
>> with the Birmingham (UK)/Black Country accent to fully appreciate:
>>
>> Q What's the difference between buffalo and bison?
>> A  "Yow cor wash yer onds in a buff'low"     /jau) kU: w&S j@ rOnz
>> in @ bVfflau)/ - 'you can't  wash your hands in a buffalo'
>>
>> The joke being bison/basin are homophonous (/boi)sn/)
>
> That's pretty cool. Where does <cor> /kU:/ come from? Does <or>
> correspond to /U:/ in other words?
>
> On the subject of <can't>, I've heard British people on TV saying
> what sounds to me like [kA:n], but it might have a [?] at the end
> that I'm missing. It almost sounds like they're saying <can>,
> especially if you're naive about British vowels like I was a few
> years ago, and assume that American /&/ is [A] or [A:] in British
> speech.
I'm an Australian. I would probably usually say [ka:n] for "can't"
before vowels; there's no trace of the "t" --- saying [ka:nto:lw&iz]
would make you sound very proper. Before consonants there's usually some
trace at least e.g. before /j/ it's [ka:ntS] as in "can't you come"
[ka:ntS@kam]. Other frequently unstressed words ending in -nd or -nt
have similar behavior --- and also "nt" within words, like in "twenty",
the "t" can be dropped.

"Can" is either [k@n] or unexpectedly [k&n] when stressed.
("Unexpectedly" because the regular rules would have it [k&:n], which
indeed we find for the noun and associated verb.)

--
Tristan.

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