Happy Beltane!

I'm on a break from the socioling paper. It's going well. I should be able to finish up tomorrow no problem. My topic is analyzing Bizarro's Cleveland dialect for the presence or absence of what we call the "aw/ah" merger (using layperson's spelling since there is no IPA on this thing). Here, you can do a little test yourself, to see if you have merged these two vowel sounds or not. Read the following pairs of words out loud. Do they sound the same or different?

dawn/Don
sob/Saab
taught/tot
wrought/rot
hawk/hock

If they sound different, then you haven't merged those vowels. If you pronounce them exactly the same, then you have merged. Of course, there are points on a continuum of this phenomenon, so not all folks are 100% one way or the other.

Hint: if you're from Cleveland (or any northern city like Chicago, Buffalo, Rochester or Syracuse) you most likely have not merged. If you're from Columbus on south in Ohio, you probably have.

Have fun! Gotta get back to the grind.