Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 June 18

= June 18 =

I'm looking for nine English words, pronounced almost equally, except for a single monophthong - by which they are phonetically different from each other.
Meanwhile, I've found a set of eight words: seat, sit, set, sat, sot, sought, soot, suit.

Please don't use proper nouns, nor acronyms (e.g. SUT).

Btw, I need nine, because the main English accents have nine undisputed monophthongs - as phonemes: FLEECE KIT DRESS TRAP STRUT THOUGHT FOOT GOOSE BALM (or BOMB). Please note that the "balm-bomb split" is disputed (GA doesn't have it), so I choose to omit it. Additionally, the last monophthong of "sofa" (and likewise) may be considered in GA - not as a phoneme - but rather as an allophone (e.g. of the monophthong of "cut" or of "calm" or of "set"), whereas the words "fur" "her" "were" "curt" (and likewise) may be considered in GA - as having consonants only - or as having an allophone of the monophthong of "cut", so I omitted their monophthong as well.

HOOTmag (talk) 09:44, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * To your first set can be added soot, but there doesn't seem to be a "sut(t)". Deor (talk) 11:01, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I have already noticed that, and changed it before I saw your comment, but after I saved my change I saw you had preceded me by two minutes... HOOTmag (talk) 11:24, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Going back to this original suggestion, and taking unforgivable liberties: seat'll, sit'll, settle, saddle, subtle, sot'll, sawed'll, soot'll, suit'll. That's "sawed'll" as in "The boards I sawed'll be used to make a desk."  --Amble (talk) 02:16, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I can get nine, in my non-rhotic British accent, using your nine examples, with one word I didn't know: PEAT, PIT, PET, PAT, PART, PUTT, PORT, PUT, POOT (which according to the OED can be a fart ("U.S. regional (chiefly south.)"; or "an insignificant or contemptible person"; or an interjection "expressing exasperation". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:06, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You could replace "part" by "pot", so you could have eight undisputed words (agreed by GA as well): peat pit, pet, pat, putt, pot, put, poot. HOOTmag (talk) 11:28, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I can get 12 with H and a little fudging - heart, hate, heat, haughty, hole, Hoo (as in Sutton), hat, het (as in "rosexual"), hit, hot, hut, hood. Tevildo (talk) 12:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Your dozen does not satisfy my basic requirement: words "pronounced almost equally, except for a single monophthong". Not only do some of your words (e.g. "hate", "hole") have a diphthong instead of a monophthong, but they are different by consonants as well. HOOTmag (talk) 12:31, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * How about teat, tit, Tet (I guess that works? Or tête if we take that as a borrowing in English), tat, tart, tut, taught, tort, toots (as in slang for a woman, toot - that's 10, in my Canadian English accent, although I suppose taught and tort would be the same vowel for some other accents? Tot is another possibility, tot and taught are the same vowel for me but probably different for others. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:41, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Toots is irrelevant, because it's different from the others by its final consonant as well. Tart and tort are irrelevant in your rhotic Canadian accent (as well as in GA), so to sum up: you have eight undisputed words only - including in GA (or seven words in your Canadian accent): teat, tit, Tet, tat, tut, toot, tot, taught (the last one being irrelevant in your Canadian accent). However, I suspect Tet is not an English word (but rather is a Vietnamese one). HOOTmag (talk) 16:27, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Aw, nuts. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * This uses some less familiar words and pronunciations......leeks, licks, leks, lacks, lucks, lawks, luxe (rhyming with dukes), looks, locks. Herbivore (talk) 18:23, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I suspect luxe does not rhyme with dukes but rather with looks... Btw, Luke's could work, and you could also remove the s from all of the words and get the same result, however Luke is a proper noun, as opposed to my initial requirement. HOOTmag (talk) 18:47, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * M-W at least lists \lüks\ as one pronunciation of luxe. This would rhyme with dukes. --Amble (talk) 19:20, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Correct (I hadn't noticed that), but it's disputed (e.g. Wiktionary does not indicate this pronunciation) while my post deals with "undisputed" words only. HOOTmag (talk) 19:39, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Wiktionary lists this pronunciation as /luks/: wikt:luxe. If you don't like that, you could drop the esses and replace luxe with wikt:luke, which is listed in Wiktionary as a common noun meaning lukewarm.  --Amble (talk) 00:30, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * In wiktionary, /luks/ is the pronunciation of both "luxe" and "looks", so it does not rhyme with "dukes", pronounced by wiktionary as /du:ks/. As for "lukewarm" (and "luke" deriving from "lukewarm"): its pronunciation is considered by Wiktionary as disputed, since it's pronounced in GA as /lukworm/ - while /lu:kwo:m/ is the pronunciation in UK. Please note that I asked for "nine" words, just because the main English accents have nine undisputed monophthongs (as phonemes) only, although the accent in UK has eleven monophthongs (as phonemes). HOOTmag (talk) 07:43, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * No, "looks" is /lʊks/, while "luxe" is /luks/. These are different vowel sounds.  Perhaps your browser isn't correctly rendering ʊ?  Note that /u/ and /u:/ are the same vowel sound, with /u:/ simply held longer.  That has no bearing at all on the straightforward fact that the /u/ in "luke" is the same vowel quality in either dialect.  The common noun "luke" is pronounced identically to the name "Luke", which you already acknowledged satisfies your requirements apart from being a proper noun; General American English simply has no contrastive vowel length in general.  I'm not sure where you're seeing any "dispute".  Herbivore's list answers your request perfectly, as does the version without the esses and with "luke".  (for those without cot-caught merger anyway.) --Amble (talk) 15:03, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * 1. The pronunciation of "luxe" is disputed: Not only is it pronounced in two different ways in US - as indicated both in the (American) M-W dictionary and in Wiktionary (without any indication about how it's pronounced outside US), but it also never rhymes with "dukes" in the British Collins Dictionary (which indicates that "luxe" only rhymes with "looks" or with "lucks").
 * 2. The very word "luke" (as an adjective rather than as a proper noun) is absent in the (American) M-W dictionary, and is indicated in Wiktionary as a Britishism, so I suspect it's not recognized outside UK.
 * 3. Both lawk and lawks are indicated in Wiktionary as Britishisms, and I can't find them in the (American) M-W dictionary.
 * HOOTmag (talk) 08:22, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
 * True that "luxe" has several pronunciations, although the one that rhymes with "dukes" is listed both in M-W and in Wiktionary but apparently not in Collins. I wouldn't say it's disputed so much as just a less common pronunciation.  I think the issue with "luke" is really just whether "lukewarm" can also be written as two words, "luke warm".  This is apparently less frequent in the US, although you can find some such usage in US media.  I agree "lawk" and "lawks" are Britishisms, although as an American English speaker I find them recognizable as markers of a particular type of British character in fiction.  I'd go with "luke" and "lawk" and accept that the pronunciation is clear, even if they're not terribly common words. --Amble (talk) 20:22, 22 June 2015 (UTC)


 * laced, last, least/leased, lest, liced, list, lost, lust, loosed. (Not sure liced is a word, strictly speaking.) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:11, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Neither "laced" nor "liced" have a monophthong. HOOTmag (talk) 19:25, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * How do you figure? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:28, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * See English phonology and note that IPA uses two vowel symbols to describe those diphthongs. See also the discussion of English in Diphthong.  Marco polo (talk) 19:37, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * In my part of America, a word like "laced" is pronounced with a single long A. No dipthong involved. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:43, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Are you in the Upper Midwest? If so, then it's possible, but /ai/ in "lice" would still be a diphthong (albeit probably slightly raised).--William Thweatt TalkContribs 20:03, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes. And the "i" in lice would be pronounced the same as "I", as in my-myself-and... Is that "I" also considered a dipthong? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:19, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes: The word "I", pronounced as the name of the letter I, is pronounced as a diphthong - generally indicated in IPA by /ai/. Just as the word "a", pronounced as the name of the letter A, is pronounced as a diphthong - generally indicated in IPA by /ei/.
 * Do you pronounce the vowel in "laced", as you pronounce the vowel in the name of the letter A? HOOTmag (talk) 20:47, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes. So are you ruling out all the "long" letters? That's going to make it hard to find nine words in a given series. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:16, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Why hard? Herbivore has found: leek, lick, lek, lack, lock, luck, lawk, look, Luke (the only problem in the last one being my initial requirement to avoid proper nouns). HOOTmag (talk) 07:43, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Calling the long I a dipthong just because of the way IPA renders it is pretty strange. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:38, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not because of IPA. Please note that IPA is just a symptom. Actually, the long a,i,o,u (as in "ray", "lie", "no", pure") are diphthongs, according to the very definition of the concept "diphthong". HOOTmag (talk) 13:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Long I is not a dipthong to a native English speaker. In Webster's, it's rendered as simply a letter I with a horizontal line over it, as the other "long" letters are. In a language like Spanish, which lacks a long I, it has to be simulated with something like "ai", hence the IPA rendition. But the long I occurs naturally in Engliah. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:54, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The concept of diphthong is objective, not depending on any given language. Just as the concepts of consonsnts (and vowels) are objective. HOOTmag (talk) 13:59, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You're confusing Webster's style of representing sounds (which is really just a typographical convention) with the actual phonological concept of diphthongs. It's certainly possible for the letter "I" to be a monophthong in English. In southern US English, for example, it is sometimes - if you can imagine it being spelled in eye dialect as "ah", "ah do declayuh" or whatever, that's a monophthong. But unless you're a southern belle, your mouth is combining two different phonemes, whether you realize it or not, and regardless of however some dictionary types it. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:07, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll take the reality over the theory. "I" is a single sound. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:09, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I suppose it's possible you have an accent with a monophthong I instead of simply not knowing what you're talking about. But...well, you know. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:25, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Reality is, in standard American English, "I" is a diphthong, meaning you start making one vowel sound and transition to a different one. That is, in the course of pronouncing the first person pronoun, your actual sound making apparatus changes its shape while pronouncing it.  It is fundamentally different sounds, because you physically alter your vocal apparatus while making it.  This is different from monophthongs, like "ah" or "eh" in words like "bed" where the vowel sound represents a single orientation of your vocal chords.  This is different from the word "bide", where the "i" represents two different orientations of your vocal chords.  That's what makes it a diphthong.  (again, this discussion is void for English dialects where such a sound is an actual monopthong, such as the "Scarlet O'Hara Southern Belle" dialect.)  -- Jayron 32 14:29, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, even if you did have such an accent, then you aren't even using the sound that is represented in Webster's. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:32, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Also also, Bugs, have you ever actually read the front matter in the dictionary, instead of just guessing what the funny symbols might mean? Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.), Guide to Pronunciation on page 35a, says "this sound is a diphthong." Adam Bishop (talk) 14:47, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * In fairness, hearing that the long "I" in "like" is actually two distinct sounds pushed together is hard! Or at least it is for many people who are not (yet) trained to hear it. I too was skeptical at first. You have to really listen to what you're saying, and think about how your mouth moves. If you have a way to record yourself saying it (video or audio), that would probably help. Another thing to try - say "lah" and then "eek". Then say them closer together. Then closer. Eventually it will sound just like "like". SemanticMantis (talk) 14:54, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The only way I would be convinced would be if I recorded my voice saying "I" and then played it at a much slowed speed. If it sounded like "ah-ee", then I would concede. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:52, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Or you could just, like, pronounce it slowly. Say it with another word, especially one that starts with a vowel. You know how Popeye says "I yam what I yam"? That's because it's a comical exaggeration of the way "I am" is actually pronounced. The "y" part comes from the second part of the "I" diphthong. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:06, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Bugs, the above descriptions of English long i as a diphthong are correct. If you say "ah" you will notice that your tongue does not move, while if you say "ah", then transition to long i you will notice that the front of your tongue rises from the bottom of your mouth to just behind your teeth.  (You can feel this motion of the tongue towards the top of your mouth if you place the tip of your finger on the front of your tongue while saying "ah" and "I".  Then say "ee" and you will see that the tongue stays where it ended up at the end of "I".  While "I" does count as one phoneme in English, it consists of two vowel sounds, or better, a shift in sound, making it a diphthong.)  It is dropping this motion that causes some Southerners in the US to say "Ah did not have sex with that woman." A good test for a diphthong is to see if you can elongate the vowel until you run out of breath without moving your tongue.  You can do this with eeeeeeeee, no problem.  But if you tray to do this with long i you will get aaaaaaaaaahee or aheeeeeeeeeee. μηδείς (talk) 19:04, 19 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Maybe Bugs should consult an oncologist, to check that his symptoms are not indicative of vowel cancer. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:14, 19 June 2015 (UTC)


 * No, all he needs is a proper vowel movement, and he'll be as right as rain. StuRat (talk) 03:53, 20 June 2015 (UTC)


 * heed/he'd, hid, head, had, hud/hudd, hod, hawed, hood, who'd. --Theurgist (talk) 16:38, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Both hud and hudd are indicated in Wiktionary as Britishisms, and I can't find them in the American M-W dictionary. HOOTmag (talk) 20:07, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You never specified that the words must or must not be Britishisms/Americanisms/Australianisms/whatever. Also, hudd is actually not indicated as anything in Wiktionary, because Wiktionary doesn't have an entry for that word (note that Wiktionary article titles are case-sensitive even for the first letter, so wikt:Hudd is a different entry - which, by the way, isn't indicated as a Britishism either). --Theurgist (talk) 18:32, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Correct, I never specified that the words must not be Britishisms, however, when I explained why I needed "nine" words (although the British accent has eleven monophthongs as phonemes), I did indicate that the main accents of English have only nine "undisputed" monophthongs as phonemes. Hence, the words themselves must be existent in every main variety of English, so (logically) their very existence must not be disputed.
 * As for "hudd": yes, wiktionary does not have it (exluding the proper noun), and I meant "Wikipedia" rather than "wiktionary". Note that Wikipedia indicates hudd as a concept having to do with the history of the Anglican church, and the article hudd itself also indicates that it's an "Anglicanism-related" stub. Anyways, I couldn't find "hudd" in any American dictionary.
 * HOOTmag (talk) 19:07, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

keyed, kid, ked, cad, cud, cod, cawed, could, cooed? --Amble (talk) 21:21, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note that the only uncommon word is "ked", which is type of insect and is listed in Wiktionary, Merriam Webster's, and Collins (UK). --Amble (talk) 01:55, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

How to list phonemes
How to list phonemes/sounds in the text: I incline to the second, but what is the most accepted style in scientific circles?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) /a o u/
 * /a, o, u/
 * 1) /a/, /o/, /u/
 * The third option is the correct one, but maybe you can use #1 and #2 as informal options. HOOTmag (talk) 20:39, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I looked through some books. Some use #3 variant consistently, especially from the Cambridge UP and Routledge. "The Handbook of IPA" uses #1 as well as some books from the CUP. "The Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World" uses #1 (p.19), #2 (p.16) and #3 (p.34). Strazny's "Encyclopedia of Linguistics" uses #3. So there seems to be no standard as such, but I'd prefer #2 as it's both economic like #1 and contrastive like #3. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 04:53, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I see this differently: It seems that the sources which use #3 prefer the formal style, while the other sources prefer the more convenient style - despite its being informal. HOOTmag (talk) 15:16, 22 June 2015 (UTC)