Re: Atheists

Matthew Huntbach wrote:
On Fri, 4 May 2007, Robert Bannister wrote:

Wood Avens wrote:

On Wed, 02 May 2007 20:26:00 -0700, "Reinhold (Rey) Aman"
<aman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


No, guys. "Gorn" is the British pronunciation of "gone" as used in
Monty Python's hilarious sketch about "woody" and "tinny" words
(episode 42).


For you rhotical guys, it's also spelt "gawn", which better represents
the True Brit pronunciation, as in this from T S Eliot's Mr
Mistoffeles:


I wonder about that. I suspect the reason English people, in particular, often opt for the "or" spelling, is because the typical London pronunciation is very fronted and to some extent rounded. Not that I would expect any BrE speaker to distinguish between "aw" and "or" in speaking.


Which creates a problem for pawnbrokers.

Actually, there is a slight difference in careful standard BrE
pronunciation, and, of course, a clear diference in rhotic varieties
of BrE. Consider, for example, "poor" and "pore" and "paw". I think
most BrE speakers would recognise these as differing slightly, though agree
that only in careful pronuncistion could they be distinguished.

I remember having an argument with our phonetics tutor at university (London) about that: it seems that I do pronounce "poor" and "paw" identically - no diphthong. In particular with "moor", the diphthongised version always sounds vaguely northern, almost Scottish, to me.

But do you recognise what I meant by a fronted "or" sound in many London speakers? I used to think it was lip rounding, because if I try to imitate it, that it what I do, but I think it's just fronted, and I think those people do it with a lot of their Rs too - sometimes, it almost sounds like a speech defect.

--
Rob Bannister
.

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