Re: Horse/hoarse (was Re: "I'm coffee and he's espresso." -- facially nonsensical)

From: Mike Lyle (mike_lyle_uk_at_yahoo.co.uk)
Date: 06/21/04 

Date: 21 Jun 2004 10:20:06 -0700

"Jonathan Jordan" <jonathan.jordan@sheffield.ac.uk> wrote in message news:<2jnku5F13e5gnU1@uni-berlin.de>...
> "Ruud Harmsen" <realemailseesite01@rudhar.com> wrote in message
> news:v1hbd0tpp1rhjjs7q11r5hs07758r8308v@4ax.com...
> > Sun, 20 Jun 2004 16:29:51 +0000 (UTC): "Aaron J. Dinkin"
> > <dinkin@babel.ling.upenn.edu>: in sci.lang:
> >
> > >Also known as the "horse"/"hoarse" merger.
> >
> > Is there any English speaking part of the world where these are
> > different?
>
> Yes.
>
> > If so, how?
>
> Varies. I have the vowels as [O] and [o@] respecively.
>
> > What about course and coarse?
>
> They're the same, and rhyme with "hoarse".
>
[...]

I'm Aus turned to RP, and I agree, roughly, on 'horse' and 'hoarse';
but not, I think, on 'course' and 'coarse', which both seem to rhyme
with 'horse'. But I know we all have an armoury of pronunciations
which will tell a listener which one of these kinds of things we mean
if he's in doubt.

If I introspect, I think my 'horse'/'hoarse' difference may actually
be based on spelling. (Why do the linguisticians insist that literacy
is a somehow inferior factor in language? We're a literate society,
FGS! It may make their simplistic calculations more difficult, but
it's actually *there*, boys!) But these things depend so much on
position in a sentence, emphasis, and such, that I don't really
believe a final solution is possible. That's one of the reasons I
think IPA transcriptions are a valiant and honourable effort ending up
in a load of simplistic nonsense.

Mike.