Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 June 30

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June 30

What English dialect pronounce "moral" this way [maw-row]?

Instead of emphasizing the long o sound, the person pronounces the o with a short o sound? Sneazy (talk) 18:53, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Cockney. mgSH 20:39, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't most everyone rhyme the "mor-" with "or"? Which sounds like "awr" to me. But dropping the trailing "L" - is that strictly a Cockney thing? I've heard various Brits (and some east coast Americans) drop the trailing "L". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:33, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

In most American dialects, even those with the cot–caught merger, "or" and "awr" are distinct. I thought the exceptions were mostly limited to the mid-Atlantic region, which makes me a little surprised that you don't distinguish them, Bugs. Maybe I was wrong about how far up the East Coast that merger goes.

The "maw-row" pronunciation makes me think of something Rose would say, and I thought she spoke Multicultural London English rather than Cockney. Was I wrong about that too? --Trovatore (talk) 21:41, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it's a Midwestern thing. To my ears, "or" by itself is pronounced the same as the "or" part of coral, floral, laurel, moral, oral, and probably others. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

For me too. But "awr" is different from any of those. --Trovatore (talk) 23:47, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

How do you figure? If there's a difference, it's very slight. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:51, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Not slight at all, in my speech. This is the problem with trying to communicate phonetics by spelling — we don't pronounce the respellings the same, either. Are you saying you pronounce the a in "Bryn Mawr" the same as the o in "Florida"? If so, then my conjecture is that, for you, both vowels are about the same as the one I use for "Bryn Mawr", and you wouldn't hear anything odd in Johnny Cash's version of Orange Blossom Special, which to me sounds like "ahrnge". --Trovatore (talk) 00:04, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I've always heard "Bryn Mawr" to rhyme with "Tin Star", or as if it were spelled "Brin Mar". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, mawr (meaning "big") is pronounced more like "tower" with a rolled "r". I'm struggling to find an IPA representation. Alansplodge (talk) 20:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, well then the problem may be different than I thought. What is an example of a word with "awr" in it that is pronounced the way you intend by that spelling? --Trovatore (talk) 00:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

"Bryn Mawr" is kind of an odd one, being from Welsh and probably butchered by English speakers, as we tend to do with foreign words. Then there's Lawry's, which I've always heard as a homophone with a name like "Lowrey". As in "Ow!" Offhand I'm not coming up with any other "awr" words. But the "aw" part of almost any word I would pronounce almost exactly like the "o" in "or". As with all, awl, ball, bawl, call, crawl, fall, gall, Gaul, hall, haul, jaw, law, mall, maul, pall, paul, saul, tall, wall, y'all, etc. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

OK, so I think you're saying you pronounce that vowel the same as you pronounce the vowel in "caught"; is that correct? My "or" vowel is more rounded than that, or at least more rounded than my "caught" vowel, even though I do distinguish "caught" from "cot". --Trovatore (talk) 01:03, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I remember an episode of That Girl where Marlo Thomas was taken to task by her b/f Ted Bessell for pronouncing "awry" to rhyme with "gory" or "story". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:44, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

L vocalization is pretty common in greater London (or "Estuary") speech in general. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually the lack of L vocalization - as if the speaker were Elmer Fudd. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

"Vocalization" in the sense of "pronouncing it as a vowel". --Trovatore (talk) 23:47, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I think L-vocalization is more common than people think. I speak near-GA, and in fast speech my final l's have very light or no front contact. The primary constriction seems to be the rearward one; a possible transcription might be something like [ʊ̯ˁ(^l)]. Lsfreak (talk) 00:33, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Of course, analyzing your own speech can be dangerous, so maybe I'm full of crap. Lsfreak (talk) 00:41, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I have only heard Orthodox Jews with this specific speech affect (as opposed to defect) in America, and in those cases some sort of British influence seemed present. There's also Mark Steyn who is a Canadian Iwishman of Jewish descent whose famiwy are Cathowic convewts and who is a pwactising Angwican aftew his Bwitish pubwic schoow education duwing pubescence. (I greatly exaggerate--but you can hear the tendency.) μηδείς (talk) 02:51, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Pronuncation of "l" as "w" is one of the many unattractive traits of uneducated southern English speech. 81.159.106.160 (talk) 01:40, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

See dark l (which redirects to the technical term, but.) --Shirt58 (talk) 12:01, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Mispellings ("pronuncation") are much more unattractive to the eye than certain sounds are to the ear. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:29, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Rose Tyler's accent

OK, so what is it, actually? Looking at the Multicultural London English makes me think I was wrong about that, given that a nickname for that accent is apparently "Jafaican", and no one would be tempted to draw dreadlocks on a cartoon of Rose. Is it just Estuary English (apparently sometimes called "Mockney")? What about Alesha Phillips of Law & Order: UK — surely not MLE because she's too upper-class (well, at least upper-middle-class), but it does seem a bit different from the speech of her other bewigged colleagues. --Trovatore (talk) 23:57, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Who's Rose Tyler? --TammyMoet (talk) 10:47, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Rose Tyler played by Billie Piper. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:02, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, in that case Estuary English but leaning towards Received Pronunciation. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:05, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

with vs. and

Which is most appropriate in this case?

• The woman matches the orientation of the slot with the card in her hand.
• The woman matches the orientation of the slot and the card in her hand.

The first one sounds good to the ear, but I think the second is ok. It would make sense to match two or more objects, as the word "match" seems to imply plural objects. Sneazy (talk) 19:39, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

No. 1 would be used if there were multiple slots of which only one would match a particular card, and her job is to match her card with or to the appropriate slot.

No. 2 is where there's only one slot, but she does not know which orientation applies, so she has to try out various orientations with her card till she finds the one that works. However, No. 1 could also be used in this case, so it's not cut and dry. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:02, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Is the woman manipulating the slot or the card in her hand? I thik it would make more sense if it read more like this:

The woman matches the card in her hand to the orientation of the slot.

Mingmingla (talk) 01:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Call me stupid (most people do anyway) but I was having trouble working out what was going on until Mingmingla's interpretation, so if it's not that version you want, both of the original ones are a trifle unclear. It all makes sense afterward, but you tend to rummage through your mind, experimenting with stuff like multiple slots being matched to possible cards. As I see it now, it's one slot, one card, and only the orientation has to match (which I'm hoping is not rocket science?). IBE (talk) 08:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)