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[Opinions] No (m)
by Calla (guest)
2/5/2013, 6:02 PM
in reply to a message by overtheclouds
Dawn sounds just like it looks. Like lawn and fawn. DAHN is not like Dan. DAHN is longer sounding. I don't know how else to say it other than DAHN. Okay, you know the word entourage? The sound the 'en' makes at the beginning? That's what the 'ahn' sounds like in DAHN. Best way to put it... heh.AH and AW sound nothing alike in my accent.
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Replies

- Tiggs   +4
2/6/2013, 1:53 PM
This is the key here on BTN...AH pot, con
AW bought, sawnWhere I live, each of these vowel sound examples are identical, and each are also identical to Dawn, lawn, fawn and the beginning "en" in "entourage" and the "Dan" of Dante.The name Dan itself rhymes with can, pan, man, etc.
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- Calla (guest)
2/6/2013, 3:17 PM
The key sounds right in my head. AH is pot, cot. AW is bought, sawn. But Dawn, Dan, and Dante all have 3 distinct sounds. Dante sounds line don-tay. Dan sounds like pan.
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- Flute (meganmichele)   +2
2/6/2013, 2:11 PM
It's called the cot-caught merger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_low_back_vowels#Cot.E2.80.93caught_mergerThey sound identical to me, too, which makes sense since I'm from the western US.
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- Tiggs
2/6/2013, 9:28 PM
Interesting......thanks for that. We don't have the father-brother merger but we do have a fairly recent trend among young people to use "bra" rather than "bro" as short for brother.
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- Calla (guest)
2/6/2013, 3:27 PM
Exactly. It depends on where you live. I spent a portion of my life in north eastern US and that explains why I think they sound so different. Some people just crazy uppity over it.
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- M'Quve's Vase (arwentroi)   +1
2/6/2013, 1:28 PM
Same here. I crack up when people spell names with "aw" to try to ensure it's pronounced with an "ah" sound, because in my accent it's very much "AWWWWWWWW."Short A in my accent is very nasally, so there's a noticeable difference between how I'd say Dan and how the first syllable in Dante is pronounced in Italian.
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- Calla (guest)
2/6/2013, 3:15 PM
Exactly. It's like the Shawn/Sean debacle!
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