Re: Galveston

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 14:45:04 -0000 (UTC): Christian Weisgerber
<naddy@mips.inka.de> scribeva:

On 2025-03-26, Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:
>

OK. At 81 (soon to be 82) I'm clearly in the Older category.
>
Having lived outside the anglophone world for nearly 40 I haven't been
subject to the more modern influences, and still speak as I always did.

>
So, as an old geezer, what is your personal opinion on Lindsey's
following assertion on the TRAP-BATH split?
>
   Today greater diversity is allowed even among BBC newsreaders,
 documentary narrators, etc. It's now common for such speakers to
 have unbroadened TRAP in _bath_, _after_, _ask_, _answer_, _demand_,
 _chant_, _sample_, etc. We might say that SSB now includes
 un-broadened BATH words as an option.
   This is convenient for learners aiming at a British accent, as
 BATH-broadening can be tricky to learn. Not only is it hard to
 explain why words did or did not broaden; there are also words
 which have broadened more recently, such as _graph_. It's no
 longer a high priority for learners to use the broadened forms.

Broadened here seems to mean longer and backer.

Regardless, my personal observation from British media is that
beyond the very core vocabulary, there is considerable uncertainty
where to use broad A.  I've heard _transplant_ with TRAP-TRAP,
TRAP-PALM, and PALM-PALM vowels.