On 28 Oct 2003, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: #Mark A Mandel <mam at theworld.com> writes: #> 1. Do you pronounce "Don" and "dawn" the same? # #There *is* a difference in how I pronounce them, but it isn't #significant; neither one is "wrong", I'd understand either one as #meaning the correct word in context, and if you could construct a #sentence where the context *doesn't* tell me which, I probably #wouldn't automatically assume it from the pronunciation. "Bride's side or groom's side?" "I'm Dawn's brother." "D()n the bride, or D()n the groom?" [pronouncing both the same, and hearing both as the same] I based this "poll" on an unforgettable moment from the first day of my Phonetics 101 class at U.C. Berkeley with John Ohala. He drew the "vowel quadrilateral" on the board and went round it, pointing to each symbol as he pronounced the sound it represented. A hand went up. "Mr. Ohala, would you pronounce those two again?" John smiled slightly. "These two? AW ... AH ... AW ... AH" "Uhh... are you saying that those are different?" And about one-third of the class nodded in puzzled agreement with the student. The rest of us stared at *him* in equally puzzled astonishment. And John described the low back vowel neutralization that occurs in many US dialects, including in Southern California. # #> 2a. When you read question 1, did you react "Huh? Doesn't everyone?" #> #> 2b. ... or did you react "Huh? Does anyone?!" # #Too much time in pronunciation discussions recently, so I'm not #likely to say either :-). Heh. I didn't ask for what you'd say, but how you'd react. OK, I *meant* in thought. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel