tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post1452349806642207477..comments2024-03-17T09:14:13.950+00:00Comments on John Wells’s phonetic blog: English placesJohn Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-73409112147057301422013-09-12T10:48:00.542+01:002013-09-12T10:48:00.542+01:00Howard Boss - I too have a strong dislike of the a...Howard Boss - I too have a strong dislike of the a: for words like bath, pass etc.<br /><br />If you look at the exercises used when learning to type, one of the first is "the cat sat on the mat".<br /><br />This is not pronounced ka:t or sa:t or ma:t<br /><br />Why then a: in bath or pass?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16441664785393908008noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-44674861870449529532012-04-01T15:27:52.313+01:002012-04-01T15:27:52.313+01:00I have a late addition to this conversation. On t...I have a late addition to this conversation. On <a href="http://www.mendeley.com/research/baths-and-becks/#page-1" rel="nofollow">this article</a>, which you can see for free, Gupta says on page 25 that the number of northerners who use [ɑ:] is so small that he disagrees that the BATH vowel is a sociolinguistic variable. He also found that many Northerners strongly dislike [ɑ:].<br /><br />This is reminiscent of Petyt's research in West Yorkshire in 1970-1. He found only two people who used [ɑ:] in BATH and they had both been to public schools in the south of England. Again he found a large number of people who strongly disliked [ɑ:].<br /><br />Personally I don't think that [ɑ:] can be considered non-regional. There might be one or two people in the north who use it, but note that Gupta also found a few people in the south who use [a] in BATH and that there's bound to be variation in the Midlands.Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-90128075486151649682012-03-29T08:37:29.326+01:002012-03-29T08:37:29.326+01:00Yes, they reflect the old Low-German and Dutch of ...Yes, they reflect the old Low-German and Dutch of way of marking vowel-length. Same hardly ever fails to confuse the uninitiated, witness 'de Waelhens', usually pronounced with an 'epsilon' vowel by those who don't know or ignore the Old Netherlandic spelling device.Podpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-11432336983542344512012-03-22T11:17:50.955+00:002012-03-22T11:17:50.955+00:00There are I believe quite a number of cities in Mi...There are I believe quite a number of cities in Middle West and North West Germany like Itzenhoe that have for /o:/. The one that springs to mind is Soest (/zo:st/).Kilian Hekhuishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01084720179158650652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-43639322078772069202012-03-22T03:27:06.101+00:002012-03-22T03:27:06.101+00:00"Oddly enough, howjsay.com has castle with [ɑ...<i>"Oddly enough, howjsay.com has castle with [ɑ:] and Castleford with [a]. I do actually know people who make this distinction."</i><br /><br />That doesn't seem so strange, on the basis of pronouncing place names as most of the locals do. I know a speaker from Yorkshire who distinguishes "bath" and "Bath".Alanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10627322349797202893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-20580250477711994142012-03-17T17:28:38.684+00:002012-03-17T17:28:38.684+00:00"I must confess that I did not set up a set o..."I must confess that I did not set up a set of principles before starting work. Rather, what follows is a post-hoc attempt to express the principles I think I generally followed."<br /><br />I find those general principles quite reasonable.Italo arditohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02765182984634579556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-21392970152772483892012-03-17T10:39:46.624+00:002012-03-17T10:39:46.624+00:00sorry, I meant to say 'every non-NS speaker......sorry, I meant to say 'every non-NS speaker...' of course.<br /><br />On the other hand, that uncalled-for (I'd insist) glossa gave you an opportunity to build in a link to 'slumming', which I have found quite interesting and entertaining.<br /><br />Other than that---do you chaps know many examples of such problems and qui pro quo's from other languages? One example I can very vaguely seem to remember is Schiller's using somewhere (I forget where) the name of Itzehoe, a town in N. Germany, in such a way as to suggest the pronunciation [ø] of the last vowel while in reality it is an [o]. Low German spelling, not known to S., plus probably Frisian origin of the name, witness -tz-, otherwise unexplainable in Low German.<br /><br />I often perplex my students with the no less than five pronunciations of 'Featherstonehaugh', none of which is 'feather-stone-haw' as the spelling might suggest, quoted by John in his immortal Dictionary. I wonder, though, if these 'fairsharnhays' and what not are still in current use by anyone, and if yes, for how long yet.Podpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-26237693820499061442012-03-17T10:27:15.176+00:002012-03-17T10:27:15.176+00:00John, you need not have added, I think, the explan...John, you need not have added, I think, the explanation 'for the benefit of a nonNS' to your 'when I were a lad', I think every NS who is competent and interested in English enough to read your blog will immediately have understood the comic effect and the origin of this phrase. Maybe it's being a 'stock-phrase' could not have been so immediately obvious (only on reflection).Podpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-11861439217035364402012-03-16T23:32:32.155+00:002012-03-16T23:32:32.155+00:00P.S. I agree with you that the BATH issue is diff...P.S. I agree with you that the BATH issue is different from h-dropping. There are a lot of people in Hull who do not drop the H in the name, whereas there are very few (if any) people in Castleford who pronounce it with [ɑ:]. I think that we Northerners do not usually consider our BATH vowel as a "local feature", since almost everyone uses [a] and this extends over a very large area of England.<br /><br />It is interesting that there has been no shift in generations from [a] towards [ɑ:]. If anything, [a] has gained words such as "master" and "Nazi". My father said [mɑ:stə] and [nɑ:tsɪ] whereas I say [mastə] and [natsɪ].Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-20300141390977055942012-03-16T23:21:15.077+00:002012-03-16T23:21:15.077+00:00Oddly enough, howjsay.com has castle with [ɑ:] and...Oddly enough, howjsay.com has <a href="http://howjsay.com/index.php?word=castle&submit=Submit" rel="nofollow">castle</a> with [ɑ:] and <a href="http://howjsay.com/index.php?word=castleford&submit=Submit" rel="nofollow">Castleford</a> with [a]. I do actually know people who make this distinction.Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-90358568158958300092012-03-16T23:01:19.401+00:002012-03-16T23:01:19.401+00:00The spelling suggests ['ple:sto:] to me. Howe...The spelling suggests ['ple:sto:] to me. However, I do believe that locals' views on pronunciation should be respected and it wouldn't be too much effort for me to say [plɑ:stɔʊ] as an approximation to their pronunciation, so I'd probably choose that.<br /><br />I would try to imitate the local pronunciation as long as it didn't require a sound that I don't use in everyday English.Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-78685026339015009952012-03-16T20:38:45.266+00:002012-03-16T20:38:45.266+00:00I have the same feeling, but I think I'd settl...I have the same feeling, but I think I'd settle on <b>a</b>.JHJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03257258313943639485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-22333545817607465372012-03-16T20:36:45.531+00:002012-03-16T20:36:45.531+00:00Correction: I don't think, however, that dicti...Correction: I don't think, however, that dictionaries <b>should</b> treat "Castleford" any differently from "castle" or other BATH words; I think they should give both vowels.JHJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03257258313943639485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-66025690060325601382012-03-16T19:43:51.973+00:002012-03-16T19:43:51.973+00:00You haven’t changed your policy in LPD, i guess. T...You haven’t changed your policy in LPD, i guess. The present form is fine there but many linguists are, yes, do change things continually. The risk factor here is that many do make a fast copies of good English teachers without any further thought, thus the changes are not noticed or questionable to them. <br /><br />I don’t do IPA, or analyze local varieties with the standards for something appears to be correct, rather than looking at something that is apparently redundant. Certainly it is a field of linguistics to see how a hypothesis can come good out of a certain illustrations ideas.<br /><br />Yes, for example, ‘the local accent typically includes various features that are regarded as non-standard and have traditionally been considered unworthy of mention in normative reference works such as dictionaries.’--but how about then an example like the same diphthong /eɪ/ for ‘EIGHT’ and ‘AIDE’ or ‘PAID’ or the /eɪ/ for ‘MAIL’ and ‘MALE’ as the homophone? <br /><br />I am sure one can distinguish the varieties even in dialects, and in RP, perhaps arguably not stated as in Cambridge or Oxford dictionaries—but a subsumes of the /ɜːɪ/ or /ɜː/ usually.<br /><br />With the different vowel on /æ/, I think the Canadian variety, unlike British, still subsumes a higher formant--to a closer /a/ variety.LangLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14326820272652746118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-15336768280088341892012-03-16T19:05:35.111+00:002012-03-16T19:05:35.111+00:00There are of course a couple of differences betwee...There are of course a couple of differences between the BATH issue and h-dropping. For one, h-dropping forms are predictable from the non-h-dropping forms, whereas this is not true of BATH (either way). For another, h-dropping is much more of a basilectal feature than TRAP=BATH. If I met a doctor or vicar (etc.) in the north of England with a long BATH vowel, I'd guess that either they had moved from further South or been to boarding school; I might of course be wrong but at least with people born after 1960 or so I'd be a bit surprised. Whereas I'd also be rather surprised if I met a doctor or vicar with consistent h-dropping.<br /><br />FOOT-STRUT is like h-dropping in that it's predictable but somewhere in between in the sociolinguistics.<br /><br />I don't think, however, that dictionaries treat "Castleford" any differently from "castle" or other BATH words; I think they should give both vowels.<br /><br />One thing I've noticed is that the computerised announcements at Sheffield station use TRAP in "Doncaster" and "Newcastle" but PALM in "class" and "staff", and also "Glasgow". I can't remember what they do to "Castleford".JHJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03257258313943639485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-64990929761778282762012-03-16T16:42:39.420+00:002012-03-16T16:42:39.420+00:00I was thinking about this as I listened to Ian Dur...I was thinking about this as I listened to Ian Dury and the Blockheads' "Plaistow Patricia" on the way to work this morning.<br /><br />I don't have a copy of LPD to hand, but Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaistow,_Newham) has <b>/ˈplɑːstoʊ/</b>. Dury's pronounciation is more or less <b>ˈplɑːstəʊ</b> I think, but in any event the first vowel is definitely <b>ɑː</b>.<br /><br />I don't know how I should pronounce this place name. My accent is middle-class Manchester; for 'path' I have <b>paθ</b> rather than <b>pɑːθ</b>.<br /><br />It feels weird for me to say <b>ˈplɑːstəʊ</b>, like I'm imitating RP or Southern English. But it feels equally weird to say <b>ˈplastəʊ</b>, I'm not sure why. And according to Wikipedia, <b>ˈpleɪstəʊ</b> would definitely be wrong. I'd be interested to hear any other Northern English speakers' intuition about this!<br /><br />(Incidentally, if anyone doesn't know the song and wants to listen to it on Spotify or whatever, be aware that the first line is <b>very</b> sweary, for dramatic effect).Paul Hopkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00209048411950548163noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-2639621529616556792012-03-16T16:01:01.908+00:002012-03-16T16:01:01.908+00:00Jack Windsor Lewis writes:
As to "I did not s...Jack Windsor Lewis writes:<br />As to "I did not set up a set of principles before starting work" I suspect your memory isnt exactly serving you well. You must surely've had a general idea and been aware of what the BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names had done in its<br />editions of 1971 and 1983 (respectively edited my G. M. Miller and G. E. Pointon). You'd probably seen what they did for Newcastle upon Tyne saying "The second<br />[nju`kӕsl], being the local pronunciation, should normally take precedence over the other. Here, however, is a case where the first [`njukɑsl] is firmly established national usage". I vividly remember, when advising Elizabeth on behalf of OUP,<br />having quite a tussle with her to persuade her to put them in that order. It was a shaky principle which Graham didnt observe in 1983 when he added Castleford even tho he left her Newcastle comment undisturbed.<br /><br />Regarding your "Note to nonNSs: when I were a lad is a stock phrase with non-standard were for was, used for comic effect." This is a phenomenon I call Linguistic Slumming. Readers who'd like to see other<br />examples of it may care to look at my <a href="http://www.yek.me.uk/archive1.html" rel="nofollow">Blog 009</a>.John Wellshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-49874071111686161082012-03-16T13:32:51.339+00:002012-03-16T13:32:51.339+00:00I was brought up in St Albans. Not sure which &quo...I was brought up in St Albans. Not sure which "side of the tracks", so to speak,but it wasn't the side that spoke RP. If I mention the home town in writing to my brother, (emails etc) we refer to it as "Snorbans", or "Snorbals", both of which are very close to how we pronounce(d) it (my brother doesn't do IPA).Gerald Kellyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02319457420621332461noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-51101194287720045822012-03-16T13:21:57.553+00:002012-03-16T13:21:57.553+00:00Thanks very much for the response. I had not thou...Thanks very much for the response. I had not thought of the parallel with "circumstance".Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-57461297518850400322012-03-16T12:30:40.269+00:002012-03-16T12:30:40.269+00:001. Aspirated.
2. Formant values for my STRUT vowe...1. Aspirated. <br />2. Formant values for my STRUT vowel can be seen in my <a href="http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/formants/index.htm" rel="nofollow">MA thesis</a> or measured in the various voice clips of mine that are on-line, eg <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlY1Z3SfoXY&list=UUwpw1Sb3DnZ-qUYURW25XpA&index=7&feature=plcp" rel="nofollow">here</a>. <br />3. No kind of RP "omits" initial <b>h</b> in STRESSED syllables. <br />4. No <b>ʍ</b>.John Wellshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-24946389616322973962012-03-16T12:25:02.416+00:002012-03-16T12:25:02.416+00:00I think if I moved to Castleford I might well do t...I think if I moved to Castleford I might well do the same. It all depends on circumstances. I have mentioned elsewhere that my brother, who became a businessman in Birmingham, has switched to /æ/ in BATH words. (My other brother, who has lived in Lancashire all his adult life, and became a school teacher, retains /ɑː/.)<br />But I have described here my actual childhood/adolescent experiences of the matter.<br /><br />Yes, I am implying that <i>-caster</i> names are not regular BATH words. They are, however, comparable to items such as <i>circumstance</i>, where RP has not made up its mind between /ə ~ æ ~ ɑː/.John Wellshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-44708655760095169312012-03-16T11:12:17.510+00:002012-03-16T11:12:17.510+00:00I'm sorry to question further on this, but I&#...I'm sorry to question further on this, but I'd like to clarify the distinction between Castleford and Doncaster. Are you saying that Castleford is a BATH word but Doncaster is not? Does the plausibility of a schwa in Doncaster mean that it cannot be considered a true BATH word?<br /><br />From my informal experience of southerners who have moved to this part of Yorkshire, I'd estimate that it's more common for them to use /æ/ in Castleford than in Doncaster, which I would attribute to its widespread nickname "Cas" /kæs/. <br /><br />I wonder if there is an upper-class person in Castleford whose pronunciation can be tested.Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-6880104293691729602012-03-16T10:36:13.668+00:002012-03-16T10:36:13.668+00:00You've pronounced it kʰɐps or kʰʌps? Though, y...You've pronounced it <b>kʰɐps</b> or <b>kʰʌps</b>? Though, you do say in your book <i>Accents of English</i>, page 281, vol. II, that U-RP plosives have "surprisingly little aspiration".<br /><br />Doesn't U-RP also habitually omit the initial <b>h</b>? Which would make Harlesden and Upholland not have it? What about <b>w</b> – was it <b>w</b> or <b>ʍ</b>?Duchesse de Guermanteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12198316853449400624noreply@blogger.com