Re: Galveston

On 2025-03-22, Ruud Harmsen <rh@rudhar.com> wrote:

This also reminds me of a discussion we had years ago, about Memphis
sounding like Memphus, in a song sung by Cher. Unthinkable in
South-Brit. The THIS and THUS vowels are always distinct there.

It's a bit more complicated, as Geoff Lindsey points out in
_English After RP_.  On the one hand, Standard Southern British has
replaced KIT with schwa in many words, e.g. the second vowel in
"foreign" and "arbitrary", and increasingly in the endings -et,
-est, -less, -ness, -red, -ress.  On the other hand, the distinction
itself is maintained and contrasts minimal pairs such as "teaches"
(KIT) and "teachers" (schwa), or "Lenin" and "Lennon".

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de