proper "o in bother" (IPA /?/) exists in American English), so your "ont" ought to be the correct pronunciation of "aunt" I think I've posted here before about a TV program I watched years ago involving a dog named "Bob" that I thought was named "Barb" though most of the show, because that's how it was being pronounced. (I also had a work colleague from San Francisco named Paul who pronounced his name with approximately the same vowel: "Paal", to rhyme with "Baal" ... demonic possession, maybe?!) The vowel in law and lore is one and the same, in both American and British English (IPA /?/). American's just rhoticize the latter. (Merriam-Webster gives them, rather imprecisely, as /l?/ and /l?r/ respectively) but how old are you, anyway? Do you REALLY recall the near-century past since the world was McMericanized? I'm in my early 40s; spent my formative years in South-East Asia and mainland Europe, attending "International" schools (which is to say American schools: we had American certifications, standardized tests, etc., the students were mainly the children of foreign diplomatic and military personnel, probably near 50% American, so I'm very familiar with American English, but with the other 50% of the student body coming from pretty much every other place you could name, the standard English was not overly-Americanized -- standard English throughout most of the world is still basically British English). Terry on January 2, 2012 12:00 pm Does anyone know where and why Duck/Duct tape was originally used? It