Re: YAEPT: Australian Milo

On 30/06/06, Sai Emrys <sai@...> wrote:
> I recently received a care package of Australian foods
> (http://saizai.livejournal.com/694201.html for my account of it). I
> was doing some research on it (vegemite is, truly, a non-American food
> product :-P) and noticed this.
Milo's uniquely Australian? (I suppose I can see why Ikea have Sweden Shops.)

I've made a post on your blog, but didn't answer your real question,
which is answered below in this email. It's anonymous though so I
think you have to enable it or something... It discusses Vegemite.

> For some reason, I find the pronounciation of "go" by the little girl
> in the Milo skipping commercial - http://www.nestle.com.au/milo/ -
> mouseover or click the three girls at the top middle - to be very very
> funny.
>
> Could anyone tell me what exactly that vowel is that she's using, and
> perchance why it's so humorous? I seriously can't hear that and keep a
> straight face.
It's humorous because it's not a sound you're used to hearing
(possibly from a certain group of sounds), and you're paying attention
to how it's beeing said. I don't know why those are so funny, but they
seem to be! (Possibly subconciously you try to work out how it's
articulated,¹ and find you can't, so mask your embarrassment by
laughing? (even tho you're not embarassed at all). I dunno, but I've
had that same sort of reaction to Swedish /y:/,² and I've heard others
have it with Australian English /i:/ (which is not at all like [i:]).)
That's my best guess... Anyone else have any experience with sounds
(individual vowels or consonants, used in speech) so funny you just
have to laugh?

As for the vowel in question, I think it's approximately [3i\] ... at
least, the end of it seems to have less rounding than I'd cannonically
put there, but it's still a normal pronounciation of "long o".

1: Have you tried to actually pronounce the vowel reliably? Did you
come to the conclusion that you couludn't?

2: But not /y:/ in other languages, or [y:] in isolation, all of which
I've come across before Swedish /y:/. Certainly the French and Dutch
/y/ are unexciting. I don't know if this reflects the precise quality,
the length, the context, or what.

--
Tristan.

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