>
> My first semester at UC Berkeley as a grad student in
> linguistics. Phonology
> 101 with John Ohala, first day of class. John (as I know him
> now) sets up the "vowel trapezoid" on the blackboard and
> articulates the cardinal vowels, pointing to each in turn,
> down the front (left) and up the back (right). (I have to use
> approximate English spelling equivalents here rather than
> IPA, International Phonetic Alphabet, which even if I managed
> to type it in here would not come across in e-mail. "bEEt"
> means "the sound of the EE in 'beet', and so on.)
>
> bEEt cOOt
> bAIt cOAt
> bEt cAUght (=AW)
> bAt cOt (= AH like the "a" in fAther for most Americans)
>
> A hand goes up. "Professor Ohala? Would you pronounce those
> two again?"
>
> John smiles a little and points to the bottom two on the
> right side. "These two?"
>
> "Yes, please."
>
> (Pointing.) "AH. AW. AH. AW."
>
> "Are you saying those sounds are different?!"
>
> About two thirds of the class turns to stare at the
> questioner in disbelief.
> ("Can't you hear it?")
>
> Then most of the rest of the class has their turn for
> disbelief. ("Hear what?")
>
> Welcome to the Lower Back Vowel Merger.
I have that experience with "hot". I pronounce it like "hAWt" and my wife
pronounces it more like "hAHt" and I tease her and tell her she's drawling
while she accueses me of sounding like a prat. Also I say "milk" and she
pronounces it closer to "melk". I've joked that I'm going to market that as
a non-dairy product at the grocery store and she claims I say the word like
a kitten would: "Miewlk. Miewlk."
It's all a matter of pronounce-iation.
Shawn