What accent do you really hate? and which one you love?

>>Yeah that makes sense considering your dialect. One thing I should say is that regardless of dialect most North American English dialects have no phonemic length distinction between vowels. The differences are qualitative (so, where the vowel is produced in the mouth). Thus, for instance, "beet" and "bit" are the same length but have different qualities.<<

However, people often forget that that pertains only to the phonemicity of vowel length in itself, and does not prevent vowel length from communicating *other* phonemic distinctions even when they are otherwise neutralized (as in the example of "latter" and "ladder").

<<However, people often forget that that pertains only to the phonemicity of vowel length in itself, and does not prevent vowel length from communicating *other* phonemic distinctions even when they are otherwise neutralized (as in the example of "latter" and "ladder").>>

True. Of course for me I pronounce "latter" and "ladder" exactly the same (no vowel distinction in length or quality) but for some there may be a slight difference. Anyway I was just pointing out that terminology such as "short o" is not universally accurate (but I knew what Ed meant anyway).

>><<And what about other words with a short 'o' sound in them? Does, for example, "shot" become a homophone of "short" or does this "caught-cot" merger only apply to some words?>>

Nope. Same as above--"short" has an /r\/ while "shot" doesn't so the two sound very different.<<

The main matter here is that I think that Ed has somehow completely overlooked that not all English dialects are non-rhotic, from looking at his comments above. Such is weird, though, considering that NAE dialects form a very large portion of extant English dialects out there today, and they for the most part are firmly rhotic, with the only real exceptions being some Northeastern dialects, some coastal Southern dialects, and AAVE.

<<The main matter here is that I think that Ed has somehow completely overlooked that not all English dialects are non-rhotic, from looking at his comments above. Such is weird, though, considering that NAE dialects form a very large portion of extant English dialects out there today, and they for the most part are firmly rhotic, with the only real exceptions being some Northeastern dialects, some coastal Southern dialects, and AAVE.>>

Well I guess it's only natural to make assumptions based on your own dialect. I think all of us were quite unaware of (most of) the unique features of our respective dialects before we started learning about linguistics/dialectology. But, yes, it's definitely true that for a great many English speakers "court" is quite different from "cot" or "caught" not just because of the vowel but because there's an /r\/ in there.

>>Well I guess it's only natural to make assumptions based on your own dialect.<<

Or more like the formal register of one's own dialect, as one may very well be quite unaware of how things really operate underneath it all even in one's own native dialect.

>>I think all of us were quite unaware of (most of) the unique features of our respective dialects before we started learning about linguistics/dialectology.<<

Oh, most definitely. At least in my case, I could say that until even quite recently I was far more familiar with the phonology of GAE, besides some of the more widespread and obvious variations on such present even in formal speech here such as Canadian Raising of /aI/, than the actual phonology of the dialect here, much of which I am still not completely sure of (such as the specifics of lateral vocalization here or seemingly anomalous cases in which Canadian Raising occurs where it "shouldn't", such as sporadically word-finally or in certain word classes like "idle" and "bridal"). This resulted in things such as many of my transcriptions being simply wrong, as the transcriptions were really being done on the basis of phonological assumptions more appropriate for GAE and often used symbols really corresponding to the same logical phonemes but in GAE.

> The main matter here is that I think that Ed has somehow completely overlooked that not all English dialects are non-rhotic, from looking at his comments above. Such is weird, though, considering that NAE dialects form a very large portion of extant English dialects out there today, and they for the most part are firmly rhotic, with the only real exceptions being some Northeastern dialects, some coastal Southern dialects, and AAVE.

Where I live here in South West England, the local dialect is rhotic, though I do not speak in this way as I am not from these parts originally. Also, not everyone here speaks this dialect, it tends to be more of a rural thing. So I'm familiar with a rhoticity but it's not something I notice because usually it doesn't make any difference to the meaning of words.

On the other hand I'm familiar with Afrikaans pronunciation, where the correct pronunciation of 'r' can be essential to the meaning of a word, eg to distinguish "eie" (own) from "eier" (egg), the former ending in a schwa and the latter a slightly rolled 'r'.
However, I wouldn't really distinguish between "kort" (short) and English caught because although I can hear there is slight difference it does not seem significant, just as the 'c' is aspirated in English but the 'k' is unaspirated in Afrikaans. I can tell the difference if I listen for it, but as my dialect does not distinguish between the two sounds I don't really noticie it.

I asked some speakers of the rhotic South West dialect at work if they consider "caught" and "short" to rhyme and they said they do. Though I can hear there is a difference it seems to be ignored. Perhaps because we are taught in the standard dialect of English that they do rhyme we consider they do, even though they are subtly different.

>>Yeah, before I started learning about linguistics and different accents I was completely oblivious to the fact that some people didn't pronounce "cot" and "caught" the same.<<

That is quite incredible, but presumably meant seriously. Did the considerably different spelling never suggest that there may be a difference somewhere? Had you never seen any films or television made outside North America?

Well, to be fair, how often do you hear cot and caught in the same sentence? And how often are you listening for minor vowel changes anyway? And spelling is hardly a key pice of information, considering how widely varied the spellings of similar sounds can be in English.

The Scottish accent fucking owns aw the ther accents in the world. The Geordie and Scouser accent sucks ballocks.

<<That is quite incredible, but presumably meant seriously.>>

Of course it was meant seriously--I've only ever been surrounded by "cot-caught" mergers like myself (aside from traveling but I'm talking about the primary linguistic influences of my parents and peers in my formative linguistic years) so I would have no reason to assume people pronounced them differently.

As for most mergers, people with the merged sound typically just hear people who differentiate the two vowels as producing one vowel. For instance, my dialect distinguishes "pin" and "pen" but someone who is "pin-pen" merged is very likely to analyze my own consistently different realizations of "pin" and "pen" as variations upon the same vowel (if they think about it at all, which is unlikely). Of course this is all on a subconscious level. With few exceptions only people familiar with or interested in English dialects on a linguistic level are consciously familiar with mergers and splits.

Anyway, if you still find it hard to believe (or just are curious) you might be interested in scrolling back a page or two where I made an audio recording demonstrating the merger in my speech.

<<Had you never seen any films or television made outside North America?>>

This ties in with my previous response. So even while growing up I had heard plenty of "cot-caught" nonmergers (a small majority of Americans *doesn't* merge the sounds, after all) as with most other people here in California (and other "cot-caught" merging places) I'd never consciously noticed the difference in the speech of "c-c" nonmergers. I had realized that, say, New Yorkers and RP speakers had a "funny" vowel for words like "caught" but I naturally assumed they had the same one for "cot" (Uriel brings up a good point in saying that they rarely occur right after each other and even if they did most people are not analyzing language on a conscious level).

<<Did the considerably different spelling never suggest that there may be a difference somewhere? >>

Nope. When I was taught (or rather "tot" :D ) to read I naturally learned that the spelling combination "au/aw" was just another way to make the "ah" sound (as in "father" or how most Americans pronounce "top"). English has plenty of ways to spell the same sound so given the context it's nothing out of the ordinary to have just yet another way to spell the "ah" sound.

<<I asked some speakers of the rhotic South West dialect at work if they consider "caught" and "short" to rhyme and they said they do. Though I can hear there is a difference it seems to be ignored. Perhaps because we are taught in the standard dialect of English that they do rhyme we consider they do, even though they are subtly different.>>

Yeah that may be it. Interesting. Well if you listen to my audio recording you can tell they're very different as I say them!

Certainly historically English always distinguished them because up until the 17th-18th century there was no rhotic/nonrhotic divide to speak of since English was always rhotic. Only with the advent of nonrhotic dialects in 18th century Britain did such words as "caught" and "court" come to rhyme for such speakers (so, for instance, Shakespeare was a rhotic speaker since he was around before nonrhoticity popped up. He would've pronounced them quite differently as is still done in rhotic UK and North American dialects).

get t'fuck weesteve if it wornt f'th geordie language ye lot'd hev nay language at aal!!

Q) waddaya caal a geordie wi ees brains kicked oot?
A1) Scottish
A2) A Maccum

Aam gaana git a muckle big pit saw, haawk frerm Edinburgh tiv Hull (fetch wa awld borders back) push it fortha in t'th North Sea and declare independance frerm the rist erv the Worrld! Caal the North Sea the 'Northumbria Watta' caal me new Island 'The Peoples Republic of Northumbria', an the rest of the cuntry will be knaan as 'Cockney wankers' except for Scotland which will be knaan as 'Gonnie-no-dee-that land' Wales as 'Russia' and Eire and Ulster will be known as 'Eireulsterland' (or Ireland for short)

Is there a Liverpool in America?

There's one in NY, near Syracuse.

Nice to meet you everyone!
I am Chanese,my English is so limited,I really want to learn English well,I think I love American English more.
Could you tell me what should I do in order to learn English well?
Thank you very much!