[HPforGrownups] OT--dialects, was pronunciation

[Simon Biber]

No: HPFGUIDX 9050

> > Forks and Fawkes are homophones, at least in my dialect (Australian).
Would
> > you pronounce them differently?
>
> I did a dialect study of east Texas for my honors paper in English,
because
> dialect maps persistently place it in the Southern dialect, which is
r-less
> (meaning the /r/ is dropped when it occurs in certain placements, like a
> British or Australian person [which, by the way, most Texans cannot
distinguish
> betwixt]).

I find that amusing. Obviously I can distinguish British from Australian, as
well as a few different styles of each. As an aside I can distinguish some
different American accents, though nowhere near the level that some can.
(Down to the state or city sometimes.)

>No part of Texas is r-less, at least anymore--the Southern dialect
> is shrinking. But my grandmother was from east Texas, and *was* r-less,
and I
> remember as a child begging her to say such things as "sugar" and "pepper"
and
> "butter" because it sounded like /shugah/ and /peppah/ and /buttah/, which
was
> endlessly amusing to us. She would have found "forks" and "fawkes" to be
> homophones, as well.

I pronounce "sugar", "pepper" and "butter" as /shooga/ (oo as in look) and
/peppa/ and /butta/. Similar except that the /ah/ implies a long sound
whereas I would use a short one.

> The voiced /r/ sounds a lot like the "rrrrrr" noise you make when you're
> pretending to growl, hunting your kids. [I'm sure you can actually produce
the
> noise, unlike the Irish with /th/, but I can't find you an example,
sorry--I
> cannot, sitting here with no books in front of me, think of a word with
the
> appropriate phoneme in the Australian dialect.]

Yes, I can easily imitate that - /shoogerr/... it just isn't my natural
pronunciation.

> The /o/ in "forks" is much closer to a long /o/ than the "aw" in Fawkes,
which
> is more the /ah/ of enlightenment, deepened a bit by the /w/--very much
like
> the "awww" in response to a cute kid or puppy or such. Suffice it to say
that
> in the American Midland dialect, which most of us speak some variant of,
the
> two words do sound very different.

Saying 'forks' with a long /o/ would almost sound like 'folks' -- except
that you voice the /r/, of course. Is that right?

> Amanda, damn proud of her "y'all" and "fixin' to," thank you very much

What does "fixin' to" mean?

Simon.