Re: Deseret alphabet

On Sat, Aug 23, 2003 at 11:12:26AM -0500, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> > > How is pronounced the letter short o (o as in woman)?
The 'o' in "woman" is not the sound usually called a "short o" in
English; the descriptions on the Deseret page are quite non-standard.

The usual application of "long" and "short" to English vowels
are these:

        SHORT           LONG
A       hat             hate
E       met             meet
I       bit             bite
O       not             note
U       but             butte

On the "long u", opinions differ upon whether the vowel sound
includes an initial palatal glide or not.  This confusion may stem
from an oft-stated rule that "long vowels say their name"; that
is, the long vowel sound is the same as the name of the letter,
and the name of the letter U is /ju/.  One sometimes sees "short
oo" for the vowel in "foot" and "long oo" for the vowel in "boot",
as distinct from the "long u" (with leading palatal) in "butte".

Please note that the above is not at all intended to be an
exhaustive list of English vowel sounds; it's just the ones to
which the appellations "long" and "short" are usually applied.

The 'o' in most pronunciations of "woman" is not an 'o' sound of
any type, despite the spelling.  It's a "short oo", for those who
use that term; for those who don't, it is considered a third "u"
sound which is neither long nor short (much as the "a" in "father"
is considered a third "a" sound which is neither long nor short).

-Mark