Delete comment from: John Wells’s phonetic blog
"DRESS raising"
I never realized how funny that sounded until you mentioned it.
I love the lexical sets. I use them all the time. I agree with Amy's choice of using FATHER instead of PALM for American English, because Americans pronounce the /l/ in "palm" (even if it's vocalized). I also prefer to call what you call "LOT-unrounding" "the FATHER-BOTHER merger". I think it's better not to be so specific regarding the phonetic quality of the vowel, because some North Americans actually use a rounded vowel.
Feb 1, 2010, 9:18:00 AM
Posted to lexical sets