Comments on: When -OT is [ət]

By: Julian Locke

Julian Locke — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:56:59 +0000

Perhaps in South Africa or New Zealand the word “office” would be pronounced as PreciseEdit suggests. Alas, the example is an unfortunate one, as the letter i is, of all the vowels, the one that resists the schwa pronunciation more than any other, except, perhaps, as I have suggested, in certain English-speaking countries with very “clipped” accents – i.e., with very short and often indistinct vowel sounds. Interestingly, in the two countries mentioned, the word “clipped” would normally be pronounced something like /kləpt/, where the central vowel sound is the very schwa sound we’re discussing.

By: PreciseEdit

PreciseEdit — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:54:52 +0000

CMDWEB: Very true. Regional dialects will make a difference in how words are pronounced. However, if we go with the phonetic spelling (using that funny upside-down “e” character that symbolizes the schwa) in the examples above, you will, indeed, get that “uh” sound that characterizes unstressed vowels. Of course, not everyone in every place will pronounce words according to the “official” phonetic spelling.

I am not familiar with the word “spicket.” Is that a regional spelling for “spigot”? The US English word for a tap or faucet is “spigot.”

By: cmdweb

cmdweb — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:42:40 +0000

…and a ’spigot’ shouldn’t be confused with a ’spicket’ here in Scotland, which is a tap (or faucet in the US).

By: cmdweb

cmdweb — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:41:13 +0000

PreciseEdit, I think the pronunciation, certainly in the UK, is very much dependent upon regional accent and dialect.
Where I am, in Scotland, spigot is pronounced ‘-et’ at the end, whereas parachute is very much pronounced as it is written with the ‘ah’ sounded twice in a similar way.

By: PreciseEdit

PreciseEdit — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:53:28 +0000

I think all unstressed vowels in English are pronounced with the schwa sound, which sounds similar to a short”uh” and is written “ə.”

For example, the “i” in “office” has this sound, as does the second “a” in “parachute.”

In the case of “spigot,” the issue isn’t so much that the word ends in “-ot” but that the “o” is unstressed. So, while “spigot” is spelled with “-ot,” it would be pronounced the same if it were spelled with “-ed.”

At least I think so. Many years have passed since my last cultural linguistics course.