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From: rdd@usa1.com (Aaron J. Dinkin)
Subject: Re: "Bother" and "father" rhyme
Message-ID: <rdd-1208961053360001@dmn1-66.usa1.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 10:53:36 -0500
References: <4suk93$pob@carrera.intergate.bc.ca> <rte-0608962153100001@135.25.41.185> <rdd-0708961734470001@dmn1-35.usa1.c <rdd-0908961055310001@dmn1-21.usa1.com> <4ulu3g$pmu@shellx.best.com> <320ef47d.2195132@news.gnatnet.net>
Lines: 46

In article <320ef47d.2195132@news.gnatnet.net>, djohns@gnatnet.net wrote:

> Joe Keane <jgk@jgk.org> wrote:
> 
> # For anyone from the East, if you claim that `bother' and `father' rhyme,
> # they look at you like you're clearly a bit daft (slow, retahded, etc.).
> 
> Maybe you'd better define "East".  I grew up 140 miles west of Boston, and
> everyone there used the same vowel in _father_ and _bother_.

I've lived eighteen miles north of Boston my entire life, and no one here
uses the same vowel.

> By your criterion, The Great American West must start at the Connecticut
> River.

Doesn't it?

In article <4um0ug$f2m@news4.digex.net>, kcivey@cpcug.org (Keith C. Ivey) wrote:

> Are you sure you're not thinking of the distinction between
> "caller" and "collar" or "caught" and "cot"?  That is maintained
> more often in the East than in the West.

Well, ironically enough, it's not by those who distinguish "logger" and
"lager" (in my experience). I've got /a/ in "father", /A/ in "bother", and
/A/ in "bought".

In article <4ulvue$8st@samba.rahul.net>, Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@rahul.net> wrote:

> There are at least three different vowel sounds here:
> 
>      1. father
>      2. bother
>      3. farther
> 
> In Britain, 1 and 3 are degenrate.
> 
> In the USA, 1 and 2 are degenerate.

In my part of the USA, I make the three-way /a/-/A/-/ar/ distinction.
(Though Boston is traditionally nonrhotic, so some folks around here
collapse 1 and 3.)

-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom

