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#92948 02/10/03 02:51 PM
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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.


#92949 02/10/03 02:55 PM
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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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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!


#92951 02/10/03 03:04 PM
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Bean, why do Canadians pronounce about "aboot"? (or mebbe you wanna ask why USns pronounce aboot "about"? )


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this whole tot/taught, cot/caught thang is a giant yart. just to chop some liver.




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just to chop some liver

Hawk liver!? ...I'd rather eat ham hocks!


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Oh, but giant yarts are allowed on Mondays!


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giant yarts are allowed on Mondays!

Where a giant yart is defined as one that will sleep 20 or more,


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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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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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