longman pronunciation dictionary john c wells

On the other hand perhaps LPD does deserve credit for being the first (I think) pronunciation dictionary to mention the existence of the variant wɒn. Let’s hear no more nonsense about wʌn being “archaic”, “dialectal”, or “a cruel parody”.

The fact that more younger people than older report a preference for ɒ in one and for æ in chance can be seen as a greater willingness on the part of northern respondents to report a preference for their own pronunciation in cases where it is known to deviate from the perceived norm (RP: wʌn, tʃɑːns). In my lectures about the research underlying LPD I have for many years now been reporting this finding as illustrating a gradual trend of reduced deference towards RP. Putting it another way, for all age groups there is a majority reporting a preference for the STRUT vowel, not the LOT vowel. You will see that although there is a trend towards a preference for wɒn over wʌn (or for some perhaps wʊn, wən - anyhow, STRUT) in BrE, in no age group does it reach 50%. Here is the graphic from the current, third, edition (2008). It’s in the second edition (2000) onwards. So last night I felt obliged to point out that in my Longman Pronunciation Dictionary I made known the results of the preference poll I conducted into the pronunciation of this word. 'One' has the LOT vowel, not the STRUT one, for an awful lot of people.In fact, the the STRUT vowel there sounds very archaic/dialectal to me To me, pronouncing 'one' with STRUT is part of a cruel parody of ultra-conservative RP ('where hez wun's het gawn?').

And some people’s perception of reality appeared to be very, shall we say, partial.

Although it was somewhat off-topic, people commenting started discussing the pronunciation of one. Judging by the comments on yesterday’s posting, it looks as if I sometimes don’t bang the drum loudly enough about what I have published.

Longman pronunciation dictionary john c wells