nardlz t1_j9w73vt wrote on February 25, 2023 at 12:13 AM

Reply to comment by szyzk in Survey on Pennsylvania Dialect (“cot” and “caught”) by pretty_hooligan

cot is still cot, but caught is cawt

Rcmacc t1_j9z8kjp wrote on February 25, 2023 at 5:35 PM

It applies to other words / names too

“john” vs “jawn”

“Don” vs “Dawn”

nardlz t1_j9zuha6 wrote on February 25, 2023 at 8:00 PM

water and wawter is the one kids at school will fight over!

szyzk t1_j9wgjgn wrote on February 25, 2023 at 1:24 AM

I'm assuming this is an eastern PA thing?

Yankiwi17273 t1_j9wx2k7 wrote on February 25, 2023 at 3:38 AM

I think I remember learning that the “cot-caught merger” (when they sound the same) is actually the younger pronunciation, and said merger is more popular the further west in the country you go, and the younger the speaker.

That said, I say those two words differently and I am young too.

szyzk t1_j9wzx9y wrote on February 25, 2023 at 4:02 AM

I'm going to start grilling my old college friends who are scattered around PA, my Lehigh Valley pals, and my family in the Harrisburg area about this. I can't say that I've heard any of them come close to approaching the New England-ish "aw" sound, and I've certainly never heard it here in western PA.

Yankiwi17273 t1_j9x1tqh wrote on February 25, 2023 at 4:20 AM

I mean, I don’t say it like a Bostonian would say “cwawfee”.

But for me, cot rhymes with hot, and the vowel in caught is like “law”. Just like “law” and “hot” have different vowel sounds for me, so do “caught” and “cot”.

nardlz t1_j9wo8mu wrote on February 25, 2023 at 2:24 AM

Not sure but I think so. I thought it was a NJ or NY thing