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From: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Subject: bird bud banana worry hurry furry sod father bought...
Message-ID: <DvFr30.2M4@scn.org>
Sender: news@scn.org
Reply-To: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Organization: Seattle Community Network
References: innumerable articles in several cognate threads
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 01:35:23 GMT
Lines: 77


I'm a native speaker (42 y.o.) of American English and have lived most of 
my life (all of my first 13 years) in Seattle, near the north end of the 
US West Coast.

{} I use these brackets to name the main poster(s) whose comments 
elicited mine.  In some cases I wander a ways from where they were... 

{Philip Hunt}  In my idiolect the vowel in "bird" is completely distinct 
from that in "bud"; the former is longer, and rhotacized, but even if I 
remove the R-coloration (which incidentally covers the whole segment--it's
*not* and off-glide) the remaining sound is quite different (from "bud"'s 
vowel); in fact, it *almost* sounds/feels like the vowel in "good".

{Julian Pardoe}  In my idiolect the vowels in "bud" and in the first (and 
last) syllables of "banana" *feel* like the same spimd/  The former is 
longer, but not I think contrastively so, and I think the difference in 
length is at least in part a function of stress; also I think my vowels 
tend to lengthen before *voiced* consonants ("bud" has a longer vowel 
than "but", "buzz" than "bus").  What really struck me as odd, though, in 
one of your postings was the sentence 

     >"Bud" has a sound quite different to the other two.

-- not on phonological grounds but because in my idiolect things are 
*never* different (or distinct/dissimilar/divergent) _to_ other things; 
likewise, in my idiolect (at *least*, and I think I have millions of 
AmEng speakers on my side), things are *never* similar or identical 
_from_ other things.  However, they *are* indistinguishable _from_ (never 
_to_) other things -- the exception that proves it's English.  Note:  Al-
though I don't think I ever *use* it, I accept "different than" as not 
objectionable enough to raise a stink over, but "different to", well, no, 
that simply isn't said.

{Kevin Wald}  For me, flyswatter and icewater aren't perfect rhymes 
because for me the syllable boundary follows the morpheme boundary, *but*
(as far as I can tell) the *vowels* are the same, it's a difference in 
scansion, though I think the vowel in "fly" is actually a *little* *longer*
than the one in "ice", a noncontrastive difference I would attribute to 
the "fly" not having a final consonant.

{Kevin Wald, Aaron J. Dinkin, Ralph T. Edwards}  For me, "worry" has a 
*slightly* different *feel* from "hurry" and "furry" (which for me are 
*usually* exact rhymes.  The worry/hurry contrast is so slight, however, 
that I wouldn't think of hesitating to use them as rhymes, nor would I 
expect my listeners to detect a difference.
     As far as hurry/furry go, in most contexts these are exact rhymes in 
my speech.  However, if I were to land a job as a carnival barker and it 
fell to my lot to say (loudly):

     "Hurry, hurry, hurry!  Step right up and..."

I'm sure I would shout /'h@ ri/ instead of my normal /'hR i/; in fact, I 
might stray so far from my own norm as to say /'h@ rI/ -- even though in 
my normal English speech, words *never* end in -I!

*And yet* I'll have to agree with Aaron Dinkin's description of the <u> 
in "circus", which I *do* at least sometimes give an /I/-like sound, 
notwithstanding the fact that *for me* the vowels in "abut" are 
essentially the same *and* "hurry" and "furry" rhyme.

{Keith Ivey et al.}  And as far as sod/father/bought are concerned, at 
normal speech rates I think my vowels here are pretty much one.  In very 
careful, slow speech there are minor differences, but I think they are 
allophonic variations that arise under the influence of (a) the 
surrounding sounds (e.g. the previously mentioned lengthening effect of 
adjoining voiced consonants) and (b) psychological effects of the 
orthography (I tend in slow speech to round slightly anything spelled 
with an o, seems like.)  For that matter, I think "sod" and "sawed" are 
homophones for me, and they rhyme with ("All Glory,) Laud (and Honor").


--
Liland Brajant ROS'        "Armeo sen kulturo estas malsagxa armeo, kaj
P O Box 30091              malsagxa armeo ne povas venki la malamikon."
Seattle, WA 98103 Usono    --"La Unuecfronto en Kultura Laboro" (30 okt
Tel. (206) 633-2434        1944), _Elektitaj Verkoj de Maux Zedong_ v 3
