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Mine is a mix of Californian/Canadian pronunciations, so I'm all over the place. pro-fessional, pro-pose, sahrry, about (American), skedule, pro-cess, etc. etc.
the first line makes sense as these are 'short o' words for the most part (prawn definitly not), thus because of the caught-cot merger that Canadians/most Americans possess, words that have short o's are pronounced as 'ah', prahstitute for example (there are exceptions of course).
For me Propose is prahpose not pro-pose...even professional is prahfessional at least for me...but i'll lable someone a pro and not a prah (that would be bizarre!)
and I live in Toronto
But you're British not Canadian aren't you? How old were you when you moved to Canada?
LOL, my dh was commenting on this and other words when we first moved to the US.
I always say PRAW-cess myself (born and raised in Ottawa), not "prah" or "proh". That is probably the sound that "prah" was meant to represent, but in the US it is often pronounced with a real short "a" sound, like pra-cess, so that is what I read the "prah" to represent.
I think you need to make the distinction between the "ah" sound and the "aw" sound. I did my own poll on a Canadian parenting website and it seems like the east-coasters may more often use the "ah" sound wheras those from southern Ontario more often seem to use the "aw" sound. Not many use the "oh" sound. It does seem to vary by word too, though. Like while I say praw-cess, I say proh-pose and pro-fessional. We all have so many different influences in our speech, though.
But you're British not Canadian aren't you? How old were you when you moved to Canada?
I was 13...My idiolect is basically North American I say North American and not Canadian because I don't possess any of the uniquely Canadian features (features the Americans do not possess, like Canadian Raising, really rounded 'o' sounds) but I also lack any US twang so I have a bland accent that is unmistakably North American (not british at all)..but harder to pinpoint exactly where in North America...
Very interesting, I guess that's a regional difference between our respective accents, I'd be pro-pose and pro-fessional. This is an interesting thread.
it is regionalisms but I do tend to use British/American vowel sounds, so the lot vowel (ah) is chosen mostly for short 'o' sounds (laht for lot, dahler for dollar)...I know weird right?
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