Talk:Simon Target

message: (Moved from user-talk space.)
 I changed your pronuncation for reasons stated in that edit summary. But if there is some style guide that says that we should rigorously use the diaphonemic scheme even in the case of personal names, then please point me to it as I am willing to be corrected on this. --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 06:03, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: P.S. admittedly right now I am not using a computer with working audio so I can't double-check the video which I linked to, but I recall from listening to it at the time when I transcribed the pronuncation that he has an RP (i.e. non-rhotic) accent. --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 06:05, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

text: To transcribe it as /ɑːr/ is indeed to speculate that it is a realization of START, but to transcribe it as /ɑː/ is also to speculate that it is a realization of PALM. And the spelling suggests it is the former. Since the Help:IPA/English key, which  links to, is diaphonemic, the template has no way of indicating "/ɑː/ that is both START and PALM". So as long as IPAc-en is used and if we want to stick to the way that is instructed by MOS:PRON and H:IPAE and is already practiced in many articles, we are left with nothing but  to transcribe the vowel. To write "" would exclude rhotic British accents; e.g. "" would be within what is sanctioned by MOS:PRON, but would lose the convenience of the key and tooltips. Nardog (talk) 08:08, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: We should definitely presume that words spelled with  and pronounced in non-Rhotic dialects like RP with  are, indeed, members of the START vowel. This is such a common cross-dialectal occurrence that it's basically a rule. There is, to my knowledge, no example of a word spelled with  that is pronounced with the PALM vowel in rhotic dialects. — Æµ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:33, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: In my opinion, our habit of prescribing a “diaphonemic” transcription will eventually turn out to be untenable because nobody else uses such a transcription. Turning over this habit will take an incredible amount of perseverance, though. I think that the points in favour of dropping the /r/ in this particular case are perfectly sound and solid, but you are unlikely to succeed unless you are willing to invest weeks if not months into this fight. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 18:03, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I am certainly not going to "invest weeks if not months", and in any case I don't think it helps collaboration to refer to it as a "fight". To be honest, I would favour  even at the expense of losing the tooltips. I didn't realise that it is even an option, but frankly, the only source we have relates to how it is pronounced in RP (by one particular speaker, namely the subject), so if we are to give a diaphonemic transcription at all then we are forced to speculate on essentially unsourced material (i.e. how a rhotic speaker would pronounce it). I accept that it is plausible that a rhotic speaker would use the START vowel. However, it is also plausible that they would not, if they hear it from the subject (or from another non-rhotic speaker, e.g. on Australian TV?) and don't know the orthography (or don't put much weight on the orthography because in any case the pronunciation isn't /ˈtɑːrgɪt/). The big advantage of just giving a transcription for RP is that we stick to what is sourced and do not need to resolve this question. Are people okay with that option? --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 17:45, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, Money, but you're wrong. It's not "also plausible" that it would be anything but the START vowel. There's no reason to believe it to be the PALM vowel. There's also no real reason to deviate from the diaphonemic transcription system without getting a consensus to change Wikpedia's conventions at Help talk:IPA/English. — Æµ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 21:05, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation