Re: "To whom"

On 26 Jan 2005, at 11.28 am, # 1 wrote:

>> [1] Yes, for some few people "could of" actually involves a real
>> "of", and
>> writing it that way might be justifiable [albeit not to prescriptivist
>> grammarians] but IME most people who write 'could of' actually say
>> "could've".
>
> Forgive my ignorance, but may I ask for a little example using "could
> of" as
> "of"? :-)
'of' and "'ve" often sound the same in pronunciation, so people have
misinterpreted /kud@v/ as 'could of'. Then, some people even go so far
as pronouncing the 'of' with a full vowel. It means the same thing as
'could've', but is basically non-standard.

> And, with the same goal of being able to talk naturaly:
>
> I know how to pronounce "I'd go", "you'd go", "he'd go", "we'd go"...
>
> but how is pronounced "it'd go"?
>
> [It@d] with a very short schwa?
>
> or is it simply not usable and everybody says "it would"?
No, /It@d/, with a schwa (not particularly slow. As has been said, you
might want to voice the /t/ and pronounce it particularly quickly if
you've learnt American English (I don't imagine you've learnt
Australian English, but the same guidelines apply for us, too).

After things that aren't pronouns, it's always pronounced with a schwa;
after a vowel, the unreduced form may be more common (note that here
I'm using my non-rhotic Australian speech which introduces extra /r/'s
where they aren't written: if you're learning American English, I don't
know what you'd do there):
    The cat would go => The cat'd go /D@ k&t@d gVu\/
    Max would go => Max'd go /m&x@d gVu\/
    Lucinda would go /l@sInd@w@d gVu\/ OR Lucinda'd go /l@sInd@r@d gVu\/

The same rules apply for anything spelt 'd (or, for that matter, 've,
except that the final /v/ is often---perhaps usually---elided).

I can't promise these rules generalise well to other people's speech
but my own.

--
Tristan.