If the concern is that the header has a wider aspect ratio, maybe put the vowel chart to the side?

I flew mostly due east along the north side of the country. Perhaps emblematic of back vowels being pushed from their fronted position??

Oh! Yeah. I… knew that. 😳

Not at BYU! (We don’t drink coffee.)

The one that gets me is that most PALM words pattern with my LOT. Except for the word "palm" itself (psalm, alms, calm, etc) which patterns with THOUGHT because of the (pronounced) tautosyllabic coda lateral, which is the one area of my phonology where I have the LOT-THOUGHT merger.

Heyo! Wells pun!

accordion
california
corduroy
corps
dorothy
enormous
fjord
formal
former
formula
gordon
gorgeous
hornet
horton
jordan
lorna
morse
mortar
mortgage
mortuary
norma
norman
norway
orchard
orchards
ordinance
orleans
ornament
orphan
orson
orville
perform
porcelain
porcupine
portion
sort
york

…such that looks very much like a merger by transfer rather than by approximation.

Fortunately, my analysis is not super dependent on the precise classifications, but having some a priori assignment makes it easier to spot this kind of merger.

Here are the ones I've currently tagged as unknown ▼

I figure everyone's entitled to their own distribution anyway :)

But more importantly though, I think that in and of itself is what makes this interesting. I noticed in these older Utahns that some NORTH words are clearly lowered while others are very much not. So there's variation within the set…

Oh, yeah that's super unclear. I meant basically a distinction between FORCE and NORTH.

AndyYeah, it's probably not the most reliable guide for contemporary stuff. Although, luckily for me, I'm analyzing data from people born 100 years ago, so hopefully it's a not bad base to work from.

If I learned anything about editing from the Office, it was this.

So it sounds like what you have is "American Raising" if it's with /aɪ/ but not /aʊ/. If it's both /aɪ/ and /aʊ/, then that's Canadian Raising. dukeupress.edu/american-rai...

Now that I think about it more, I don't actually think I have aspiration in "ice cream."