Re: LCC2: Meeting our Community

The fact is we rely almost not at all on voiced/unvoiced distinctions
in order to understand one another. I could say [vedZd@bL\=] one
moment and [vetSt@bL\=] the next and no one listening would notice. I
could mispronounce "dog" as "tog" or vice versa and if there were
enough context around, the mistake would be unnoticed or, at worst, be
noticed but not cause undo confusion. I understand my Pennsylvania
Dutch father-in-law with no trouble; when he asks, at dinner, for
someone to "pass the crap" I'm the only one who picks up on it and is
at least mildly amused while I pass him the crab without audible
comment.

The voiced/unvoiced distinction is a "last resort" disambiguator --
its role in clear communication in English is small, mostly serving to
identify some speakers' speech as marked and therefore (sometimes)
risible.