The impetus for this Web page was a discussion on the Usenet newsgroup alt.usage.english
concerning my accent. It started on October 13, 2003, with my claim that I pronounce cot
and father
with distinct
vowels. This was followed on and after October 15 by R. Fontana's asking me whether I'm MINMINM, asking me for a recording, saying it's odd that I distinguish the vowels in cot
and
father
, and being surprised that I'm not MINMINM. Then, on October 19, Fontana claimed still to be skeptical about my using distinct
vowels in cot
and father
, and asked again for a
recording. Further discussion of the distinction ensued: see an article by Aaron J. Dinkin, followed by an article by me.
So I decided to record my voice. I made the recording on November 3, 2003, with the aid of a very helpful professor in the Psychology Department at Washington University, Mitchell Sommers. (Thanks, Dr. Sommers!) He saved the recording to a .wav file (2245676 bytes). (The recording is mirrored as an MP3 file at the AUE Web site.)
The text I recorded is:
Can a cat man a catamaran?
Merry Christmas! Mary Christmas will marry Christmas day.
Come to calm.com!
It's a long time, and I mean long.
Where's Nancy?
Who's "Nancy"??
I teach Ferdinand the calm cat to fetch cold cups of coffee. Who knows more about tasting things? He's used the book.
Mary dear, make me merry. Say you'll marry me.
I was born in 1978. I lived in New York City until the summer of 2002, when I moved to University City, Missouri, USA.
After I posted it here, discussion about the recording ensued on alt.usage.english.
Curious as to how much my accent had changed by my living in Missouri for a while longer, I rerecorded the same text on January 27, 2005; the result is an .mp3 file (356336 bytes).
Copyright,
2003, 2005 Michael Hamm.Home page.