Re: sending mail to the list

Matt wrote:
>David Peterson wrote:
>
> > In a message dated 5/2/01 3:03:23 PM, jaspax@U.WASHINGTON.EDU writes:
> >
> > << Anyway, I wrote to say (1) that both "put" and "book" have /U/ (the lax
> > sound), and (2) that it doesn't matter since the distinction between /u/
> > and /U/ may be gone in 20 years anyway.  >>
> >
> >     I realized at the time that it was kind of a joke, yet...as I
> sounded it
> > out and did over and over again, I found I do have two different vowels in
> > "put" and "book": my lips are rounded with "put" and they definitely
> are not
> > with "book".  Did I just invent this when I saw that?  Does any other
> native
> > English speaker have this?  Any native Southern California English speaker?
>
>Based on my experience teaching phonetic transcription to undergraduates at
>UCLA, it seems to me that /U/ is becoming unrounded in Southern California
>English, bringing it closer to the Japanese /u/.  (In fact, some of my
>students
>treat "book" as virtually homophonous with "buck".)  But why you should have
>carried this de-rounding tendency further with "book" than with "put", I don't
>know.  I suspect that you're imagining things.
I'm not so sure that he is. I hadn't noticed until this thread came up, but
I also have a phonetic distinction between the two vowels. The vowel in
"put" is more higher and slightly more round than the vowel in "book".
Neither vowel is particularly round either. My first inclination was to say
both were unrounded, but I decided to watch myself in the mirror and saw
the rounding in "put".



Marcus Smith

Unfortunately, or luckily,
no language is tyrannically consistent.
All grammars leak.
                -- Edward Sapir