The [æ]/[a] variation before /s/ is not much of a problem--it rarely results in misunderstandings between me and others. Half my friends seem to be from Liverpool, where people say [græs] like me, so in a way this isn't a 'foreign' pronunciation. It's only a little bit of a problem in my household because Better Half's company is called Smartpass, and the character who appears in all of their audio study guides is called the Passmaster, so I end up feeling a bit like an [æs] when I'm in a room full of people talking about BH's work and I'm the only one saying [pæsmæstr].
The vowel that causes more trouble is the 'short o'--i.e. the vowel in bob. Yesterday it was this very word that got me into trouble. I was playing a CD while working my shift in the charity shop, when a man asked who was singing:
Me: The Bobs.Him (making a note of the name): The BarbsMe (stressing the vowel, making it worse): The BobsHim: The BarbsMe (catching on, using a more anglici{s/z}ed pronunciation): No, the Bobs. B-O-B-S.
I had a similar problem a few weeks before with BH. I told him I wanted to buy some caulk and re-caulk the shower. Now, half the problem here is that people don't talk about caulk in BrE. They buy sealant and re-seal the shower. But the other half of the problem was the vowel. BH thought it was odd that I'd want to put cork around the leaky bits of the shower.
Meanwhile, at Scrabble Club, I've been cruelly mocked (oh, they are so cruel at Scrabble Club) for looking for a 'bahx' instead of a 'bOx'. I'm having two problems in talking about this here. First, I don't know how to make the phonetic symbols here on Blogger (so, I'm using 'ah' and 'O'), and second, it's hard to explain the English sound to Americans, since this particular vowel sound generally doesn't exist in American English. To say it, one must round the lips slightly, rear the tongue back in the mouth (a little lower than one puts it for the vowel in law), and channel John Houseman. (You can hear all these vowels at the UCLA phonetics website.) After the Bobs incident yesterday, I was going about practicing: bauks, bAuhks, baks..., until BH proclaimed "By George, I think she's Rex Harrison!"
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I was teased something awful when I moved halfway across the US from Boston years ago, and often times people just plain couldn't understand what I was saying. I ended up actively trying to lose my accent so people wouldn't have to ask me to repeat myself over and over again.
This might be helpful as far as finding the codes to use for funky pronunciation-guide characters: http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/chapters/pronunciation.php (In the places where they use a strange character, if you view the page source and find that spot in the page, you'll see there's a character entity starting with & that you enter to represent that character.)
That's a lot of work, though. I was able to follow what you meant just fine.
Glad you could follow it...I'll give stealing (aka nicking--see comments on the 20 June posting) other people's code a try next time I need an IPA symbol!
You might find http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/bylanguage/ipachart.html helpful. At least it should be easier than finding (nicking ;) entities in other peoples HTML-source code.
Find more with google: http://www.google.com/search?q=html+entities+phonetic
Kiitos!
I remember my English friend talking about his friend from school whose nickname was Stalk. But I thought he was saying "Stork". When I finally figured out what he was saying (Stalk) I asked him to say Stork, and it sounded exactly the same (even to him).
I once worked for a man from the north-east of England who, because of Grimm's Tales or Grendel's Mother or another one of those purgative historical vowel-movements, used, as you'd expect, /aftə/ for RP /ɑftə/ and /bus/ for RP /bʌs/. However, the same global vocalic shift meant that, for RP fax (/faks/), he said something a bit like /fʌks/. After a few misunderstandings with tittering clients, I persuaded his wife to have a quiet word.
Very interested by your Bobs/Barbs story, Lynne. For most of the last 40 years I'd always thought that the Beach Boys were singing "Bob, bob, bob, bob around" (well, it's what you DO after falling off your surfboard, isn't it?). I felt such a fool when someone pointed out to me the existence of this Barbara Ann person. Now I've heard your story I don't feel quite so embarrassed. "Happens to the best of us," as they say.
Does anybody remember Northern Exposure? For years, I thought that HOLLING Vincoeur was called HARLING Vincoeur. Though why I should have imagined that a respectably North American cast had all turned non-rhotic is a mystery now.
A similar story to the bobs/barbs one:
I met some Americans while travelling, and they had a little girl of about three who was playing with her Barbie doll. I picked up one of the doll's little pink shoes and said to the girl "Are these Barbie's shoes?" (in my non-rhotic British accent).
She laughed and said scornfully "No! They're Barrrbie's shoes!"
I remembered that one of her travelling companions was called Bobby, and she must have thought I was facetiously asking if they were Bobby's shoes.
Also: To describe the British "bob" vowel to Americans who don't have it, I think a reasonable approximation is to start with the vowel in "or" (which I think is basically the same both sides of the pond) and make it much, much shorter in length.
@Rachael: the vowel in "or" is not the same in the US and England: in the US the "r" is pronounced, while in England it isn't.
For example, the words "porn" and "pawn" are generally pronounced the same in England, but in the US they aren't.
If I were to describe the most common quality for the vowel in "Bob" to an American, I would suggest the following:
1. Start with the American vowel in "Bob".
2. Shorten it.
3. Round the lips while pronouncing the vowel.
I am really starting to wonder why the British bother putting r's in their words at all! LOL
And I think you could discribe it to americans like
Bob=baub
Box=baux
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