> From:    Dennis Paul Himes <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Conspelling
> > >     That is one of the goals of Vermont Revised Spelling.  A lot of
> > > common words are spelled the same or almost the same, e.g.: "Dick and
> > > Jane run with Spot.  Dick iz a boy.  Jane iz a guerl.  Spot iz a
dog.".
> >
> > "guerl" ?
>
>     Yes, well, although many words look similar, some don't.  "Guerl" is
> analyzed "gu", /g/ (the U is there to keep the G hard before an E), "er"
> /R/, "l" /l/.

It takes a mod to make G hard before E?  Any reason for that choice?

> > >     Do you distinguish between "fairy" and "ferry"?
> >
> > Not that I'm aware of.  People do that?
>
>     I do.  "Fairy" is /fer i/, and "ferry" is /fEr i/.  In VRS they're
> "fairree" and "fe'rree".  The same distinction holds for "marry" and
> "merry", "bury" and "berry", and "vary" and "very", at least in careful
> speech.  I've noticed that in rapid speech /Er/ tends to become /er/.

Now, that _is_ slightly odd.  I have fairy/ferry, bury/berry, vary/very all
sound alike, but 'marry' has an /{/ for me, not an /e/...at least more
/{/-like than /e/, although it becomes more e-like in careless speech..
It's the same 'short-a' as in 'arrow'.

(I asked the person who called me out on putting the same vowel in 'dog' and
in 'fox' and he says 'fairy' and 'ferry' the same way also.)

> > Maybe that's why the dictionary has different signs for it  (an â for
> > 'fairy' and an e-breve for 'ferry')....  I hadn't the faintest idea why,
> > without a phonetic form (it just gives 'care' and 'pet' as examples...
but
> > what's the use if they sound the same?).
>
>     The vowels in "care" and "pet" sound the same to you?  I guess my
> dialect is closer to the dictionary writer's than yours is.

I'm pretty sure they're the same... maybe a better voweltician than I would
call me out on it... but I know when I set out to produce them I put the
same phoneme into each... {K-shortE-R} and {P-shortE-T}...

     *Muke!

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