Cameron's heart and sol [sic]

On the 23rd of January the British Prime Minister David Cameron gave an EU-shaking speech in which he talked about the future of the European Union and Britain's relationship with it.
Jack Windsor Lewis drew my attention to a particular utterance in this speech: "I will campain for it with all my heart and all my soul"
Please listen to this extract and concentrate on the pronunciation of the word "soul".

credit: The Prime Minister's Office

What does the pronunciation of 'soul' sound like to you? Is it Refined RP, General RP, Modern London English, Cockney, ...?

phonetic type of red wine

credit: Oliver232

I am, I must confess, a regular drinker of red wine. There are all sorts of red wine; some of the commoner types you are likely to encounter are:

• Merlot
• Cabernet Sauvigon
• Pinot Noir

I have recently been informed that in Australia a new grape was developed:

• Pinot More

It's particularly recommendable to senior male connoisseurs.

John Trim

We mourn the death of John L. M. Trim who died on the 19th of January 2013 in Barking Hall at the age of 88.

One of the books that most of us will certainly be familiar with is this:

a sound question

Do you recognise this snippet of music. It's the signature tune of which BBC broadcast?

Hint no. 2: The presenter's name is /sə pætrɪk mɔː/.
Hint no.3: The series title is /ðə ˈskaɪ ət ˋnaɪt/.
And the music?

Archbishop of Canterbury

credit: cliffandally

I watched Goodbye to Canterbury, a broadcast written and spoken by The Most Rev and Rt Hon the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams¹. At one time during his presentation at about 42:37 he said:

[...] it then seemed a little bit of a luxury just to sound off from a distance.

Here's the sound file:

 credit: BBC

The word luxury was pronounced /ˈlʌgzəri/ (with /g/ and /z/ being devoiced). Was this a slip of the tongue, had he mixed up luxury and luxuriance or is it an idiosyncrasy of his? Or is it a variant I am not aware of? Let's see what EPD18 and LPD3 have to say.

lemma	EPD18
luxuriance	lʌɡ-, ləɡ-	-ˈʒʊə-, -ˈʒɔː-, -ˈzʊə-, -ˈzjɔː-	-riənts
	lʌk-, lək-	-ˈʃɔː-	-riənts
	LPD3
	lʌɡ-, ləɡ-, lʌk-	-ˈzjʊər-, -ˈʒʊər-	-iənts
	lʌk-	-ˈsjʊər-, -ˈʃʊər-	-iənts
	EPD18
luxury	ˈlʌk-	-ʃəri
	LPD3
	ˈlʌk-,	-ʃəri
	§ˈlʌɡ-	-ʒəri

§ = British English non-RP

None of the two dictionaries offers /ˈlʌgzəri/ as a variant pronunciation. So the questions remain open until more evidence is available.

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¹ Dr Williams stepped down from the position of Archbishop on the 31st of December 2012.

search for the carrot

I guess all of you are familiar with the list that is produced by your browser when you search for a term such as "alveolar tap":

The advantage of such a list is the speed with which it can be displayed on your screen. 

But there are alternatives. One of them is called clustering. By this method the results can be displayed in a more structured manner. Documents that contain the search term are assigned to categories/topics. To be able to do this a search engine has to classify documents by analysing its contents statistically and linguistically. The clustering quality naturally rests on the quality of the classification algorithm.

Here is what you get when you search for "alveolar tap" using a search engine that relies on this clustering technique:

Give it a try and go to carrotsearch.

Happy New Year

I wish you a healthy and catastrophe-free New Year!

credit: Tony Stanley

Fiona Bruce again

credit: Kotomicreations

I accept JWL's challenge (see my blog of the 23rd of December) and transcribe Fiona Bruce's signing-off sentence myself /hɛː/. A few comments are added. The sentence goes like this:

Well, that's it from us. There's more on the BBC news channel including a fresh look at tomorrow's front pages. But now on BBC One it's time to join our news teams where you are. Bye-bye.

 First, here's JWL's version again:
[wəl `ats ɪt fm ˈᴧs | ðɛz ˎmɔː | ɒn ðə bibsi ˈnjʉz ʧanl | ɪŋxlʉdɪŋ ə ˈfrɛʃ ˈlək | ət təˈmɒɾz frᴧnt ˎpeɪʤɪz | bət ˈnã̟ʊ | ɒn bibisi ˈwᴧn | ɪs ˈtaɪn tə ˈʤɔɪn | ɑ njʉ simz wɛ ˎjʉ ɑ | ˈbɐ ˈbaɪh] 

Here's my version split up in several chunks of various length:
1. [wə ðæts ɪt fm ˎʌs] (This section lasts roughly 600ms. Mark the relaxed weakform pronunciations of well and from. In contrast to JWL I do hear a voiced 'th' at the beginning of that.) 
2. [ðɛz ˎmɔː ʔɒn ə biˑbsi ˈnjʉz̥ ʧænl̩] (Note the weakform for the definite article the. I can't spot an eth in the. The whole phrase lasts about 1.38s. )
3. [ɪŋɣ̊lʉdɪŋ ə ˈfrɛʃ lɘk ɘt^h] (The /k/ in including is a slightly voiced velar fricative; the vowel quality of look and at is difficult to determine because the vowel duration is extremely short. For my ears the vowels have a fairly half close character.)
4. [tˈmɒrz̥ frᴧnt ˎpeɪʤɪz] (For a news presenter it's a very relaxed pron of tomorrow's.)
5. [bət ˏnã̟ʊ] (There's a low rise on now.)
6. [ʔɒ̃n ˊbibisi wᴧn] (with a high rise on BBC One)
7. [ɪs ˈtaɪn tə ˈʤɔɪn ʔɑ ˈnjʉ siːmz̥ wɛ jʉ ɑ] (Mark the change of the consonant sequence at the word boundary between news and teams.)
8. [bɐ ˈbaɪ] (The diphthong in bye has an almost whispery character.)

Update: Please don't miss Jack Windsor Lewis's blog no. 432 on this topic.

Merry Christmas

Dear blog followers!

I wish you a peaceful, relaxing Merry Christmas.

credit: http://www.hdwallpaperspics.com/