Re: OT: baloney and cheese

Quoting Sarah Marie Parker-Allen <lloannna@...>:

> It wasn't until I figured out the politics of the Iran-Contra affair
> that I
> was for sure able to tell them apart.  Probably a year or two after the
> Gulf
> War (which happened when I was 10-11 years old, so I'm allowed a bit
> of
> confusion I think).  I still have trouble with some of the other
> countries
> in the area.
>
> Question: here (and in most of the places I've lived) there's a
> difference
> between the "a" sound in Iran and Iraq.  The first sounds like the a
> in
> "all" and the second like the a in "back" (which is why it's not really
> hard
> for me now to remember the differences between them; it's not like
> they
> really sound very much alike).  I was just thinking that if the two
> sounds
> were really the same, it'd be even harder to tell the difference in
> everyday
> speech.
In Swedish, they're [i'rA:n] and [i'rA:k] (usually spelt "Irak"), which of
course makes them even easier to confuse.

I don't know when I learnt to tell them apart, but apparently before the Gulf
War (which, according to Iraqi clocks, began on my 9th birthday), because I, as
far as I can recall, was in no confusion then.

                                                      Andreas

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