[HPforGrownups] Re: GoF Sphinx's riddle: Did Harry get it wrong?

[heather the buzzard]

No: HPFGUIDX 130431

 "Geoff Bannister"

>>I can't think of any British local accent which would turn "ment" 
>>into "mend" and I live in an area which does a lot of funny things 
>>with its pronunciation!
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>>
>
>  
>
muscatel1988 wrote:

>And you're absolutely right, Geoff.  No British dialect does.
>
>But the phonology of American English works differently.  The middle 
>consonant of, for example, "rider" is pronounced the same there as the 
>middle consonant of "writer".  Where BritEng has a voiced alveolar 
>stop in the former and a voiceless stop in the latter, AmEng has a 
>voiced alveolar flap in both.  
>
>As for how "writer" and "rider" are distinguished in AmEng, given that 
>the medial consonant doesn't do it, the difference lies in the vowel 
>of the first syllable, which is longer in the first than the second.  
>  
>

Yup, this is a known peculiarity of north american english.  Laura had 
trouble hearing it, but I'll suggest that it's extremely difficult to 
separate our perception of a word from it's actual pronounciation, as a 
matter of habituation.  There is a difference in the vowel sound, as you 
say, and that could confuse the issue.

Perhaps a better example would be "batter" and "badder", or 
"better/bedder", "leader/litre".

That's not to say there aren't north americans who do distinguish the t 
sound, but it is not standard.  In fact, it was an issue recently in the 
Scripps spelling bee (which I admit I watch, fascinated) -- in an 
unfamiliar word, if you don't know the origins of a word, it's near 
impossible to know if it's a 't' or a 'd' sound.  The commentators made 
a specific note of informing us that.

A similar problem is the "schwa" vowel... the habit of turning any 
unaccented vowel into "uh".  Think of the unaccented syllable in -- 
well, 'syllable' -- SIL-uh-bl.  How about "motor" and "voter" -- they 
rhyme, but with different vowels.

Anyway.  All that being said, there is a difference when we get to the 
demender-dementor example.  For in this case, the t/d is preceded by an 
n, and that changes everything.  I can't imagine anyone, even an 
american, saying 'demender' for 'dementor'.  Neither would "Dudley 
Demented" sound like "Dudley Demended".  The preceding n makes a huge 
difference, and here we pronounce it as a t.

"Fender/renter" don't rhyme.  "Hinting" "into" "until"... clearly 't' 
sounds. 

It's not just n's either.  "Empty" is not emdee.  "Uptown" is not 
'updown' (teehee!).  "Nifty" -- now interestingly, that does come out 
like nif-dee to me.  So it's not just a clearcut case as 't medial 
between 2 vowels is d, and t preceded by a consonant is t'.  It seems to 
depend on the consonant.  How fascinating!

And I KNOW that I've read all about this online previously, but darn it 
I can't find it right now.

So to sum up -- demender=dementor does not work in american (or 
canadian) english, just as doesn't work in british enlgish, so the 
spider solution still stands as the best.

heather the buzzard