Dog, hog, off etc.

[spacechimp]

How is someone who was raised with all Os being equal supposed to know when to pronounce Os as "aw" and when to pronounce them as "o"?

[mallam]

O Spacechimp, this is so interesting. This is a Brit site, and I guess you mean the Brit Os that are unequal. Any pronouncing dictionary will tell you, but as for rules... It is a hopeless task unless you have been raised with the distinction, and what is more it has been changing pretty unpredictably over the lamentable number of decades I have known it. I admire you for wanting to know about it, since like anyone who did grow up with the distinction, I find dialects without it very disconcerting and often downright confusing. But quite a few N American dialects are like that, and the distinction is doomed all over the world.

And the NAmerican dialects that do have the distinction have completely different differences than the Brit ones, but they are much more predictable. Rules rule almost OK. So whether you are by any chance NAmerican or not, if you really want to master the distinction before its extinction, it is a more realistic task to learn from American pronouncing dictionaries.

[mallam]

Where were you raised with all Os being equal, btw?

[heathfield]

This is one of the reasons that English is considered to be a hard language to learn for people in other countries. The different 'O' pronounciation, as between ''post'' and ''impost'' for example, makes it pretty difficult.

[Quizmonkey]

Honest and hone and one...! And Os are just the start of it. How lucky we are not to have to learn it as a second language.

[spacechimp]

mallam got it... I don't think anybody else understood what I was driving at.

I am going to have to learn each one by rote? Oh well, at least I know.

I am English, mallam.

[mallam]

Yes chimp, they seem to have thought you were talking about ALL the possible values of O, which is to me less interesting, as it's just one aspect of the chaotic state of E spelling in general.

What you were driving at was of course not spelling but dialectal variance. But have you quite got what I was driving at, if you think you are going to have to learn each one by rote?

Now I know you are English, my suggestion that you consider the NAm standard as a more realistic project does not stand up nearly as well as it would have done if you had been Irish for example.

But even so, I only used suspension points after "as for rules..." I didn't say there arent any. It's just that these rules rule a good deal less OK than in AmE. If you are really keen enough to be prepared to to learn each pronunciation by rote, I regret saying mastering these erratic rules is a hopeless task unless you have been raised with the distinction. I still think it's a bit of a pointless task when the horse is already dropping in its harness, but I'll be rooting for you, and if you say which particular dialect of English deprived you of this distinction, I might even be ble to help you.

For are we not all conservationists now? Oh no, silly me! Four legs good , two legs bad when it comes to language!

[mallam]

I hope the second answer I have just posted was less discouraging than my first. But you were less than positive yourself about the transparency of what you were driving at. Your title 'Dog, hog, off etc.' made that perfectly obvious. Do the others have different vowels in them, I wonder. That would sort of prove your point, wouldn't it?

I was born ancient, and surrounded by ancients, so I had the royal 'awf' until I ditched it.* Now I have the same vowel in all three, as no doubt you will tell me you do, but everywhere else as well.

What may indeed not be obvious from your question is that it also involves the q of whether these spellings with 'au' (or of course 'aw', 'al' ,'all'. augh. ough. etc. ) are thrown in with all these other Os.

*BTW, the Queen herself is said to be demoticizing down. Have you observed whether she has kept all her aw's? Must listen more carefully. Her grandfather "lahnched" ships, I learnt from an old newsreel. Even her mother merely "launched" a ship, "and all who sail inner".

We are all on the slippery slope, which is why I at first did not recommend conservation!

[spacechimp]

I don't really intend to incorporate them into my everyday speech, because it would sound very affected, though I wish I did have an excuse to enunciate better. It's mostly out of interest.

I hadn't known "launch" could be pronounced that way. Except in "laughter" and "aunt", and probably a few others, "au" is always pronounced AW for me.

I'm only 17, so I can't say I have noticed the Queen 'demoticizing', although I have heard it mentioned.

And I don't know how I would describe my accent. My father is northern, but I grew up in Essex. It's sort of RP but I'm getting tired and becoming more and more estuary by the day.

[mallam]

Chimp, you express the worthiest of sentiments. But why do you need an excuse to enunciate better? Do you aspire to take method acting to new heights on East Enders, and fear unemployability if you are comprehensible without a good excuse? Interest in every sense of the word is what everything should be mostly out of, imho. I think it�s in everyone�s best interests to optimize communication, and in your own to develop the communicative skills you clearly already have.

Your sequence of tenses might conceivably mean that you think I was saying "launch" can still be pronounced that way. I would welcome an assuranve that I didn�t give you that impression. Well, Americans might sound to us as if they were pronouncing it that way, but not to one another! No, Geo V was already quite an anachronism, and I would bet on that pronunciation being completely extinct in BrE by now. Another example, in fact, of the unpredictable flux I alluded to above.

At only 17, it�s remarkable what you have noticed. I wouldn�t have expected you to be listening out for the latest demoticisms from the Queen!

Now you�ve given me your dialectal coordinates, I�m a bit puzzled by your initial q. I wouldn�t have thought a father from the North, and growing up in Essex would have equated with being raised with all Os being equal. If you�re sort of RP (and I note you know the term) you may have more of these distinctions still functioning than you are aware. But I see no need to resist the slide into Estuarine. It�s quite the up-and-coming variety of English, if not already up and come. Provided always that you do resist incomprehensibility in this ever more communicatively challenged society.