http://www.linguism.co.uk/language/waverley Language in a word Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:06:06 +0100 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 hourly 1 http://www.linguism.co.uk/language/waverley/comment-page-1#comment-19513 Martin Ball Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:43:21 +0000 http://www.linguism.co.uk/?p=315#comment-19513 This problem of how to capture regional pronunciations via an unwieldy orthographic system crops up often, of course. I always wonder what "luv" is supposed to represent when used in fiction. For me, it's [lʌv], but that's how the standard varieties pronounce "love" anyway. So, maybe it's meant to be [lʊv], but it's often put in the mouths of Londoners (or at least southerners), so that makes no sense. I suspect it's just to suggest the speaker can't spell very well!! This problem of how to capture regional pronunciations via an unwieldy orthographic system crops up often, of course. I always wonder what “luv” is supposed to represent when used in fiction. For me, it’s [lʌv], but that’s how the standard varieties pronounce “love” anyway. So, maybe it’s meant to be [lʊv], but it’s often put in the mouths of Londoners (or at least southerners), so that makes no sense. I suspect it’s just to suggest the speaker can’t spell very well!!

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