The Pronunciation of "Blog" in American English

>>That's very interesting.<<

That was a guess. However, I am now discounting the possibility of such being a current phonological process, as I can think of various words today which firmly have [L\a] and never [L\O] here, even if they are loans or technical words, such as "latte", "lava" and "Lassa". Such indicates that such must be a frozen historical process, even if it was just a shift of /lA/ -> /lO/ which occurred at times in certain cases but not across the board throughout all registers and like.

>>Haha it gets even harder to explain yours then!<<

Those cases all fall in the category of places where my dialect really won't decide on /a/ or /O/; while more formally /a/ will be generally favored, such will also use /O/ as well, especially more informally.

The matter is this, though: why do these cases listed above waver, while other cases like "watch", "wash", and "water" are firmly set on using /O/ rather than /a/?

<<[w7Unt] for "wont?!" I doubt it. I mean "wont" as in "he is wont to go to the store only on Tuesdays," not "won't." :)>>

No, I really pronounce "wont" (adjective, no apostrophe) as [w7Unt]. m-w.com ( http://m-w.com/dictionary/wont ) lists it as an alternate pronunciation. ;-) I think it's something I picked up from my mother.

But why didn't "father" get the same treatment " as "rather" in NA speech? Too symbolic and entrenched to play with the traditional pronunciation?

"Waft" with a broad A I've never heard, but it makes sense for someone who is cot-caught merged. I wonder how those UK speakers who say "raft" very similarly to Americans pronounce "waft", but my money is on their treating it as though it were spelt "woft".

<<But why didn't "father" get the same treatment " as "rather" in NA speech? Too symbolic and entrenched to play with the traditional pronunciation?>>

I don't think it has to do with symbolism - I think it's just because the vowel in "father" had come to be /A/ as a separate, earlier phenomenon, before the trap-bath split occurred. I would assume, for instance, that people from Northern England, with no other traces of the trap-bath split, would still pronounce "father" with /A/? I've never heard of anyone pronouncing it *["f{D@`].

>>I've never heard of anyone pronouncing it *["f{D@`]. <<

I'm pretty sure I've heard an Irishman pronounce "father" that way, though it's not typical of most Irish.

>>"Waft" with a broad A I've never heard, but it makes sense for someone who is cot-caught merged. I wonder how those UK speakers who say "raft" very similarly to Americans pronounce "waft", but my money is on their treating it as though it were spelt "woft".<<

I myself pronounce "waft" with a broad A, that is, as [waft] (my [a] = GA [A] not GA [{]) even though I am most definitely cot-caught merged. Note that "raft" does not rhyme with it, for me, being [r\E{ft] IMD.

<<No, I really pronounce "wont" (adjective, no apostrophe) as [w7Unt]. m-w.com ( http://m-w.com/dictionary/wont ) lists it as an alternate pronunciation. ;-) I think it's something I picked up from my mother.>>

Ah, yet another fun pronunciation of yours! Hehe, thanks for clarifying. I've never heard "wont" pronounced the same as "won't" so that really surprises me.

<<But why didn't "father" get the same treatment " as "rather" in NA speech? Too symbolic and entrenched to play with the traditional pronunciation?>>

Interestingly, "father" had /{/ in Old English, being "fæder," and "rather" actually had /a:/, being "hraþor." I don't know this for sure but I'd bet "hraþor" eventually shifted to /{/ in analogy with other words. I remember reading something that said that when North America was colonized by the British "father" still commonly had /{/. I'm not sure what caused the shift from /{/ > /A/ in more recent English for "father" but it definitely didn't spread to other words to create a 'broad A' class for most North Americans.

<<"Waft" with a broad A I've never heard, but it makes sense for someone who is cot-caught merged. I wonder how those UK speakers who say "raft" very similarly to Americans pronounce "waft", but my money is on their treating it as though it were spelt "woft". >>

I have either [w{ft] or [wAft] for "waft" but it doesn't apply to other "-aft" words of mine. All others (such as "craft" and "raft") have -[{ft].

<<I myself pronounce "waft" with a broad A, that is, as [waft] (my [a] = GA [A] not GA [{]) even though I am most definitely cot-caught merged.>>

I think you mean "non cot-caught merged" :)

To address many of the previous comments, Mencken makes some interseting points about the use of the broad A sound:

http://www.bartleby.com/185/17.html

>>I think you mean "non cot-caught merged" :) <<

Of course I did.

<<Ah, yet another fun pronunciation of yours! Hehe, thanks for clarifying. I've never heard "wont" pronounced the same as "won't" so that really surprises me.>>

The interesting thing is, I think that my pronunciation of [w7Unt] might be a sort of weird inter-generational Anglicism. My maternal grandmother was an English war bride, and my mother spent several months in England when she was young, so I think there's been some English influence on her speech. I get the impression that in NAE the pronunciation /woUnt/ is somewhat rare, whereas in British English, I think /w@Unt/ is the predominant pronunciation (in fact, the Cambridge Online dictionary gives /w@Unt/ as the only pronunciation). I learned the word "wont" from my mother, so I think that my distinctive pronunciation might be the result of second-hand (or third-hand) English influence on my speech. ;-)

>>I get the impression that in NAE the pronunciation /woUnt/ is somewhat rare<<

Obviously it is not /woUnt/ but /wont/, of course. ;)

<<Obviously it is not /woUnt/ but /wont/, of course. ;)>>

Yeah, that's true.

<<The interesting thing is, I think that my pronunciation of [w7Unt] might be a sort of weird inter-generational Anglicism. My maternal grandmother was an English war bride, and my mother spent several months in England when she was young, so I think there's been some English influence on her speech. I get the impression that in NAE the pronunciation /woUnt/ is somewhat rare, whereas in British English, I think /w@Unt/ is the predominant pronunciation (in fact, the Cambridge Online dictionary gives /w@Unt/ as the only pronunciation). I learned the word "wont" from my mother, so I think that my distinctive pronunciation might be the result of second-hand (or third-hand) English influence on my speech. ;-)>>

The OED gives [w@Unt] for "wont" noting the variant [wVnt], which it says is "now chiefly US." Webster lists no fewer than four possible pronunciations. Translating its transcription into X-SAMPA here they are:

[wOnt]
[woUnt]
[wVnt]
[wAnt]

I have to say I can only ever remember hearing the last one, making my "want" and "wont" homophonous.

I've only heard "wont" pronounced the standard British way. In fact, the only non-British person I've heard say it was my mother. I used that pronunciation the few times I ever uttered the word, in my youth, and got strange looks in response. I figured those people probably didn't know the word, but maybe it was just that they pronounced it differently.

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