Thicknesse: Question on Pronunciation

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> Marion1111 wrote:
> > 
> > So, I tried this with sirius/serious (same for me) and if I stop
> right at the vowel sound, my mouth is making the shape of the "i" in
> "pit," but as soon as I add the "r" the vowel gets longer.  I took a
> linguisitics class in college as a fluff-general-elective.  I can't
> remember what it's called, but the 'r' makes a change in the vowel
> pronounciation.  And it varies from region to region.  Hey, there you
> go - are "very" and "vary" the same for you?  They are for me.
> >
> 
> Carol:
> Or how about "merry," "marry," and "Mary"? All homonyms for me, though
> I realize that Easterners, Southerners, and possibly Midwesterners may
> distinguish among them, or at least between one or two of the three.
> As for Brits from various regions, I have no idea.
> 
> Carol, who also took a linguistics class and had to *feel* the
> difference between the "ah" sounds in "father" and "hot" in her mouth
> and throat because she can't *hear* any difference

Geoff:
Thise three would certainly not be anything like homonyms to the majority 
of native UK English speakers.

Going off at a tangent, another interesting topic is UK/US spelling. It struck 
me that all the -or/-our variants such as honor/honour and so on, I would 
never spell without the 'u' because I include the two vowels in my 
pronunciation.

Mark you, I'm venturing onto dangerous ground with variant spelling. I think 
a tin hat is needed. :-)