Re: USAGE: Adrian's vowel disorder (was: RE: [i:]=[ij]?)

> > What I can't wrap my head around is that the British
> > (presumably RP) /u/, as in _to_, sounds the same as my
> > own AFAICT, so why did Kristen's textbook have it as
[u],
>
> Either because [u] is the Conservative RP (=
old-fashioned,
> obsolescent) realization of /u:/ or because textbooks tend
> to shy away from narrow transcription.
>
> > when the vowel in _took_ is a totally dissimilar sound?
>
> It's not totally dissimilar. All these vowels are close
> neighbours in the 'northeast' of the vowel quadrilateral.
They are all rounded vowels with the jaws close together,
yes, but to take an example at random they sound as
different as, say, [a] and [e]. Sorry, I just can't believe
that the difference between these vowels could be considered
narrow.