Re: A dog has forepores?

Peter Moylan wrote:

On 09/02/08 01:25, Bob Cunningham wrote:

On Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:46:32 +1100, in alt.usage.english
Peter Moylan <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Yes and no. The diphthong in English "meal" is difficult for a French
speaker to pronounce, so if the person saying it wasn't fluent in
English it could come out sounding like "mille".


The _Oxford Hachette French Dictionary_ shows French "mille"
pronounced [mil]; English "meal", [mi:l]. In their
explanatory section, they say they're using the
International Phonetic Alphabet. This says the English
vowel in "meal" is a lengthened variant of the French vowel
in "mille". But I don't doubt that that's only roughly
true.


I'd go a little further; I think my English "meal" is closer to [mi:@l].
That is, it uses a diphthong rather than a pure vowel. It's possible
that this varies from one dialect of English to another.


I'd agree with that. I'm one of those few people who do not have a diphthong in "poor" (ie for me, it rhymes with "paw"). I do, however, have a diphthong in "tour" (which in the UK, seems to have become "taw") and I do in "meal" unless I say it very quickly.

--
Rob Bannister
.

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