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#92948 - 02/10/03 09:51 AM Re: Honkin' big
Bean old hand Registered: 01/18/01 Posts: 1156	I think I've mentioned this before but anyway..in "typical" Canadian English the vowels in hock and hawk have merged, that is, they are pronounced the same. So Canadians (on average, and including myself) see the following word pairs as homophones: hock/hawk don/dawn (this can be awkward since Don is a man's name and Dawn is a woman's name) tot/taught cot/caught awful/offal cod/cawed I think this may be the case for some parts of the US - I remember looking at some vowel map at the American Dialect Society - but I can't remember the details anymore. Anyway, hock/hawk sounds perfectly normal to my ears but I can see the source of confusion.
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#92949 - 02/10/03 09:55 AM Re: Honkin' big
WhitmanO'Neill Carpal Tunnel Registered: 03/13/01 Posts: 4189 Loc: Rio Grande, Cape May County, N...	honk, honker When I was a kid, and through high school (Central New Jersey, NYC area), we always used to say for spitting "honk up a good one" or "what a honker" or "that's a big honker". And "honkey" was a disparagement for white folks. raunchy Another favorite high school expression was "man, that's raunchy!" for something that's smelly or nasty in any repulsive way. "Get that raunchy thing away from me!" bananas It was recently in the news that bananas have a good chance of disappearing within 10 years as they are genetically unable to fend off disease...unless one of our bio-geneticist maestros saves the day and saves our bananas (I love bananas!) he mispelled my name Pfranz, okay? Candian geese Uh, ladies...that's Canada geese.
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#92950 - 02/10/03 10:01 AM Re: hock, hawk and other US regionalisms
WhitmanO'Neill Carpal Tunnel Registered: 03/13/01 Posts: 4189 Loc: Rio Grande, Cape May County, N...	Boston accent(hi, wow!) For some reason folks with a stong Boston>New England accent (see the kennedys) change any word with a final syllable of "-a" to "-er"...as in Americer, Canader, staminer, etc. I had a German teacher for three years in high school who was from Boston and who spoke English with a heavy Boston accent...talk about trying to decipher that twist of accenting!
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#92951 - 02/10/03 10:04 AM Re: Honkin' big
WhitmanO'Neill Carpal Tunnel Registered: 03/13/01 Posts: 4189 Loc: Rio Grande, Cape May County, N...	Bean, why do Canadians pronounce about "aboot"? (or mebbe you wanna ask why USns pronounce aboot "about"? )
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#92952 - 02/10/03 10:06 AM Re: hock, hawk and other US regionalisms
Buffalo Shrdlu Carpal Tunnel Registered: 06/24/02 Posts: 7184 Loc: Vermont	this whole tot/taught, cot/caught thang is a giant yart. just to chop some liver. _________________________ formerly known as etaoin...
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#92953 - 02/10/03 10:11 AM Re: hock, hawk and other US regionalisms
WhitmanO'Neill Carpal Tunnel Registered: 03/13/01 Posts: 4189 Loc: Rio Grande, Cape May County, N...	just to chop some liver Hawk liver!? ...I'd rather eat ham hocks!
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#92954 - 02/10/03 10:11 AM Re: hock, hawk and other US regionalisms
Jackie Carpal Tunnel Registered: 03/15/00 Posts: 11579 Loc: Louisville, Kentucky	Oh, but giant yarts are allowed on Mondays!
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#92955 - 02/10/03 10:17 AM Re: hock, hawk and other US regionalisms
Faldage Carpal Tunnel Registered: 12/01/00 Posts: 13657	giant yarts are allowed on Mondays! Where a giant yart is defined as one that will sleep 20 or more,
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#92956 - 02/10/03 10:19 AM Re: hock, hawk and other US regionalisms
Bean old hand Registered: 01/18/01 Posts: 1156	OK, you YARTophobes, the bit about "where in the US have these vowels merged" is still unanswered, and I'm not in the mood to look for it. Instead of making fun of me you could get your Googlers out and get working! I was just pointing out a possibility, and slightly miffed that Jackie insinuated that those of us who don't differentiate between those vowels are pronouncing things improperly. [pout] I say, when a whole group of people pronounces things a particular way, then it is the right way for them! I will never be able to casually make my mouth all pointy the way you need to to pronounce awful, hawk, dawn, etc., with different vowels than the others!
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#92957 - 02/10/03 10:20 AM Re: hock, hawk and other US regionalisms
WhitmanO'Neill Carpal Tunnel Registered: 03/13/01 Posts: 4189 Loc: Rio Grande, Cape May County, N...	Where a giant yart is defined as one that will sleep 20 or more, Oh, you mean like Michael Jackson's bedroom?
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