I still don't understand how "caught" and "cot" could sound different. I sat here saying them over and over, trying to exaggerate the vowels, and they still sound the same.

The only way I could rationalize this myself was to think of the Industrial Cape Breton accent where "caught" would sound like "cat" and cot would sound like "cawt."

I pronounce caught and cot the same way as Susan W.

The caught/cot thing was one of the harder parts of my dialect class. Distinguishing the difference is super tricky, but it's there.

I was not surprised by my Dixie score, which was something like 53%, since most of my family is from the south, I was born in Florida, which gets many of the southern vocal patterns, and yet, I've spent lots of time away from the south, in large cities, and other areas where it is easy to go accent-less. So there's a Dixie influence on my vowels and word choices, but most of my enunciation is pretty standard American. So that quiz was very accurate, for me.

43% Yankee. But if I go with how my family says things, I come up with 60% Dixie.

Until I took Voice and Diction in college I didn't differentiate between pin and pen, or tin and ten. I probably learned some other stuff too.

52% Dixie, which is, like, crazy.

Nope. It's a monday. I hope you can make it.

I'm on deadline Monday & Tuesday; are those the only days you're in town?

Rio, Lee arrives Sunday evening and leaves sometime Tuesday. We might be able to meet you somewhere Sunday night if neither of you are too tired.

Yeah, Sunday's the only time I could do it. Should we take this discush to the F2F thread?

Sure

That's a very pretty ring, Rio. Congratulations.

So today I went to Jersey to bowl with a bunch of lawyers, lesbians and wiccans. And some were all three!

I just wanted to type that. It sounds like a start to a joke or something. It was a surprise party for a good friend and both myself and her best friend who she's known since elementary were able to make it, despite being out of towners. It was fun. I broke a nail, and my highest score was 62 and that was halfway through the last game. Previously, I bowled, um 34. I'm so good. Thankfully I was sharing the lane with all the other sucky bowlers. Who also all broke nails. And someone bowled 0!

It was fun. And my friend was really really surprised. She kept running around hugging people and bouncing.

Also? I found Death!Peeps! They are this brilliant shade of red. Kinda freaky. They were a big hit.

RIO!!! What a beautiful and romantic story! And man - - isn't THAT a ring!!

Also, caught sounds like ought and cot sounds like got. I pronounce Aunt sometimes like ant and sometimes like caught. What does THAT mean?