Phoneme \ɔː\ in General American

This phonetics article is adapted for General American, with very little reference to other accents. See also Phoneme /ɔː/ in General American (international version). For British English and Received Pronunciation please see IPA phoneme /ɔː/ and IPA phoneme /ɒ/.

In General American the IPA phonetic symbol **/ɔː/** corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "thought" and "cloth", and also "north" and "force". Sometimes the triangular colon /ː/ is replaced by a normal colon, as in /ɔ:/. Most American dictionaries don't write the triangular colon at all: thought /θɔt/.

In a non-rhotic accent /ɔːr/ is pronounced [ɔː] unless it is followed by a vowel, i.e. when the spelling has an "r", it is normally silent unless it is followed by a vowel.

In General American the "r" in /ɔːr/ is always pronounced. Many people pronounce /ɔː/ and /ɔːr/ with different vowels (e.g. "sauce" as [sɔs] and "source" as [sors]); however since the difference is predictable there is no problem using the same symbol in both cases (e.g. /sɔːs/ and /sɔːrs/). Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary uses /oɚ/ for "north" and /o/ for "foreign". "Sauce" and "source" are transcribed with different vowels: /ˈsɑːs/ and /ˈsoɚs/.

There are places in the United Kingdom where /ɔːr/ is pronounced [ɔːr], and places in North America where /r/ is silent.

**IPA consonants**

## Common words

Some common words containing **/ɔː/** include the following:

* with "o"*AmE*: across, along, cloth, cost, cross, dog, gone, long, loss, lost, off, offer, office, often, soft, song, strong, wrong

* with "oa": abroad, broad
* with "ough": ought, thought

past tense and past participle: bought, brought, fought, sought, thought
* with "ou": cough*AmE*
* with "a": warrant,*AmE* warranty,*AmE* water
* with "al": almost, already, also, alter, always, chalk, false, salt, talk, walk
* with "all": all, ball, call, fall, hall, mall, small, tall, wall
* with "aw": dawn, draw, flaw, hawk, jaw, law, lawn, lawyer, raw, saw, shawl, thaw, yawn
* with "au": auction, audience, August, Aussie,*AmE* austerity, Australia,*AmE* Austria,*AmE* author, autumn, cause, clause, daughter, fault, launch, pause

past tense and past participle: caught, taught
Words marked *AmE* are pronounced with /ɒ/ in Received Pronunciation.

* because:

AmE: /bɪˈkɔːz, bɪˈkʌz/
BrE: /bɪˈkɒz, bɪˈkəz/
## /ɔːr/

Some common words containing **/ɔːr/** include the following:

* with "or": afford, born, cork, for, force, fork, form, horse, important, lord, morning, nor, north, or, order, pork, report, short, sport, storm, support, sword
* with "ore": adore, before, bore, core, explore, ignore, more, score, store, wore
* with "oor": door, floor
* with "oar": boar, board, oar, roar, soar
* with "our": course, court, four, pour, your
* with "ar": award, quarter, reward, war, warm, warn

Homophones: bore - boar; bored - board; or - oar - ore - Orr; soared - sword

### Less common words

* corps, deplore, furore, gore, implore, lore, Orr, pore, restore, port, shore, torr, ward, yore

## /ɔː/, /ɑː/ or /ɒ/

Note that /ɒ/ and /ɑː/ sound identically in most of North America.
The following words may sound /ɔː/, /ɑː/ or (in very few locations) /ɒ/.

Labeled /ɑː, ɔː/ in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD)
* chocolate, on, wash

Labeled /ɔː, ɑː/ in OALD
* across, alcoh**o**l, along, B**o**ston,(\*) long, lost, off, offer, office, often, warranty

(\*) Pronunciation not available in OALD; it was taken from Random House Dictionary.

### /ɔːr/, /ɑːr/ or /ɒr/

*See Decoding exercises: "orV" and "orrV"*

The following 5 words are pronounced with /ɑː/ in General American and with /ɒ/ or /ɔː/ in other parts of North America:

* borrow, morrow (shortening of "tomorrow"), sorrow, sorry, tomorrow

The following words are pronounced with /ɔː/ in most of North America, including the General American dialect, and with /ɑː/ or /ɒ/ in specific parts of North America:

* correspond, Florida, foreign, forest, historical, majority, moral, orange, origin, priority

## Cot-caught merger

*Main article: Cot-caught merger*

In many parts of North America (about half the United States and all of Canada) /ɑː/ and /ɔː/ sound the same. This is in addition to the father - bother merger, where /ɑː/ and /ɒ/ sound the same. This means that caught /ɔː/, cot /ɒ/, father /ɑː/ and bother /ɒ/ have all the same stressed vowel /ɑː/. In this accent /ɔː/ appears only followed by /r/, as in "north" or "force". In this accent the pronunciation of /ɔːr/ may be [or], [oər], [ɔr] or [ɔːr].

## Respellings

* aussum
* with cot-caught merger: ossum

## Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1

### Spanish

Many Spanish speakers will pronounce the short o sound as /ɔː/ even when it should be pronounced /ɑː/: *lot* as \*/lɔːt/.

It is not uncommon to hear them pronouncing \*/ˈalsəʊ/ or \*/alˈtɜːrnatɪv/.

## See also

* Decoding exercises: "or"
* Decoding exercises: "orr"
* Decoding exercises: "orV" and "orrV"
* Pronunciation exercises: /ɒrV/ vs /ɔːrV/
* FORCE lexical set

## References

1. ↑ Dictionary.com, Boston.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Wikipedia, English-language vowel changes before historic /r/ § Historic "short o" before intervocalic R. Retreived 14 May 2015.
3. ↑ William Labov,The Organization of Dialect Diversity in North America, The o/oh merger [i.e. The /ɑː - ɔː/ merger].
4. ↑ https://twitter.com/hashtag/aussum
5. ↑ Urban Dictionary, aussum
6. ↑ Urban Dictionary, ossum