Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 July 22

= July 22 =

Merged vowels -- how to know if /ɑ/, /ɔ/ or /ɒ/?
"For merged speakers in Canada and most of the United States, the two sounds [ɑ] and [ɔ] are allophones; they often do not perceive differences in their usage, hear neither of them as a separate phoneme, and hear the distinct vowels used by speakers whose dialects do distinguish them as variations on the same vowel." Phonological_history_of_English_low_back_vowels

That's me. I pronounce everything with /ɑ/. How can I learn to tell from a word's spelling alone whether it would be /ɑ/, /ɔ/ or /ɒ/ in a dialect that does distinguish them?--206.248.172.247 (talk) 12:46, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Generally speaking, words spelled with "a" have /ɑ/ in such dialects (e.g. palm, father), words spelled with "au"/"aw"/"ough" have /ɔ/ (e.g. taut, thought, brawn), words spelled with "o" have /ɒ/ (e.g. lot, top, hot). Words with "wa" and "qua" often have /ɒ/ (e.g. wasp, quality), although "water" and "wash" frequently have /ɔ/. However, there is a class of words called "CLOTH" words that have /ɔ/ in North American accents that distinguish cot/caught but have /ɒ/ outside North America. These are mostly spelled with "o" before a voiceless fricative (e.g. cloth, cross, office); other examples are "chocolate", "dog", and "gone", and in some varieties of American English "on" (in stressed position). Generally it can be really hard to learn which word takes which vowel for people who don't make the distinction naturally. I recommend consulting a dictionary (or better yet three to five dictionaries from different publishers!) when in doubt. —Angr 13:05, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Abbreviations
Its NYPD but FDNY. Why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.214.50 (talk) 13:20, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * As per the article, that's how the name was chartered. &mdash; Lomn 14:20, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * (ec)Here's an explanation from Yahoo! Answers from someone whose source is "Firefighter/Instructor 21 years". Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:23, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * To be honest, neither of those references really address why the names are different, they just touch on why they haven't been changed. If the original name of the fire department was The Fire Department of the City of New York, why wasn't the police department called The Police Department of the City of New York?  The title of the FDNY actually came after the NYPD was in place, if I'm reading the article correctly (the FD is actually older, but wasn't named as the FDNY until the Tweed Charter, again assuming I understand the article). Matt Deres (talk) 17:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * There's no law that says government agencies have to use a consistent naming practice. There's the Veterans' Administration, various "departments", various "authorities", various "offices", various "agencies", various "services", and various other types of names.  They all mean basically the same thing.  The titles chosen, and the order of the words, are at the whim of those currently in power, under the principle of NGC (Nomenclature by Gubernatorial Caprice).   --  JackofOz (talk) 17:20, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) One of the references on the FDNY article (look right at the bottom of the link) explains that the name was just taken directly from the Tweed Charter which established that the Metropolitan Fire Department would no longer have any jurisdiction over New York City and that it would instead be the 'Fire Department of the City of New York' that would deal with the city. The website tells us that the Tweed Charter was indirectly 'responsible for the "F.D.N.Y." logo on apparatus instead of "N.Y.F.D.". Most departments place the city or town initials prior to "F.D." but as a direct carry over of the provision to create the "Fire Department of the City of New York", "F.D." was placed before "N.Y." on the apparatus, a tradition which lasts today.' So, in other words, it's just one of those things :) She&#39;sGotSpies (talk) 17:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * There could be an advantage. NYFD and NYPD look rather similar, so could be confused with one another, say on a 911 emergency phone call log stating who was requested to respond to the call. StuRat (talk) 08:22, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * But that's the case virtually everywhere. Were similar appearance a motivating factor, I'd expect to see NYC's differentiation as the predominant form rather than the outlier. &mdash; Lomn 17:36, 24 July 2008 (UTC)