From: glen@slate.cs.wisc.edu (Glen Ecklund)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: Do you speak Australian? Read Graeme Base?
Date: 23 Dec 92 16:19:00 GMT
Organization: U of Wisconsin Madison - Computer Sciences

anita@devvax.mincom.oz.au (Anita Graham) writes:

>In article <NICHAEL.92Dec11101223@kariba.bbn.com>, nichael@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer) writes:
>> In article <1992Dec10.182231.2160@cbnews.cb.att.com> lib@cbnews.cb.att.com (Lib) writes:
>>    In article <9212101608.AA27285@thoon.think.com> ephraim@think.com (Ephraim Vishniac) writes:
>>    >I love Graeme Base's books, but I have a little trouble with some of
>>    >his rhymes. I suspect that they work in Australian, but not in
>>    >American. Can someone explain to me how to rhyme "fore" with "paw"
>>    Easy. In Boston fore is pronounced fawh and clearly
>>    fawh rhymes pretty well with paw.
>> 

>I pronounce fore just as I pronounce four (homonymically!) and they both
>rhyme with law, paw, more, jaw etc. So please, how can you pronounce fore
>so that it doesn't rhyme with paw? Forree (rhyming with sorry), or for with 
>a short o as on forehead (forruhd).

Do you pronounce sorry with an aw sound?  That is how most USers pronounce paw.
I think that you pronounce Bob and caught with a shorter version of the
same vowel.
Some of us pronounce sorry that way, but most of us use an ah sound (ar to you).
Some USers don't have an ah sound, and say Dawn for Don.  Do Aussies?
I pronounce Dawn with an aw like caught, and Don with an ah like you probably
pronounc darn.
I'm not sure how you pronounce forehead, but the first vowel might be the
same as in our fore.  We pronounce the h, though, as in the words "for head",
but with an emphasis on the first syllable.
It sure can be hard to explain when I can't get audio feedback!

>We get lots of American TV over here (too much!) and I'd never noticed
>anything different in fore - perhaps I've never heard it. Certainly 
>nothing on the scale of the tomato/tomayto, banana/bananna differences.
>(Americans - thats your pronunciation second in those pairs. I say tomarto
>and banarna to your ears.)

I doubt that very much.  The difference you're missing is in the r's.  
To our ears, you probably say tomahto, but never tomarto.
Mainstream US speakers put about as much r in fore as in foray.
I'm sure that the r difference is quite frequent--you must not be sensitive
to it.
In general, we pronounce r's where written, and not elsewhere.  (Boston is
an exception.)  Many other dialects of English do not pronounce r's except
those followed by a vowel.  They also insert an r at the end of a word,
when that word ends in a vowel, and is followed by a word which begins with
a vowel.  I'm not sure if Aussies do this.  As an example, I hope:
"Law is my hobby" would become "Lore is my hobby."  To most USers, it 
would be easy to distinguish between those two statements.  For r-droppers,
I think it would not be possible.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.  And, if
possible, someone please come up with a better example.

To my US compatriots, I think I won't be too far off if I say that the vowel
which many English speakers use in fore, more, law, and paw is the same
as what mainstream US English uses in fore and more, only when it comes time
to move from the o to the r, you hold the o longer and drop the r.
I think that it varies with the dialect, closer to aw in some places and
closer to oh in others.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Anita Graham
>anita@mincom.oz.au
-- 
Every child shall be treated with complete respect.

Glen Ecklund     glen@cs.wisc.edu   (608) 262-1318 Office, 262-1204 Dept. Sec'y
Department of Computer Sciences        1210 W. Dayton St., Room 3355
University of Wisconsin, Madison       Madison, Wis. 53706  U.S.A.