Vowel shift

Weather: 28 degrees (feels like 23); wispy clouds?
Mood: Tired
Listening to: Blowers
Where am I? Work

So yeah, this column that I clipped is by Nathan Bierma. In it he discusses how our solid, midwestern dialect is actually moving its vowels. Which sounds kind of icky, actually.

Here's the deal: with every shift we make, something moves into the "lost vowel's" place. So this is the order he follows:

• First, short "a" moves from "apple" to something more like "ya" (think idea). In his example, "Ann" begins to sound an awful lot like "Ian."
• Then, short "o" moves from "block" to something closer to "black" to replace the short "a".
• This is followed by "open o" moving from "ought" to "ot" in order to replace the short "o".
• Replacing the "open o" is the short "u" like "bus" which now sounds like "boss."
• Even "e" isn't safe: "bet" is turning into "but."

Some of this is quite weird, I'll admit. I haven't heard anyone saying, "I'll but you $20 she hits him in the nose" or "I'm going to be late catching the boss."

However, I have heard that whole "Ian" thing, mostly with the word "yeah" which I now hear frequently as "yiaeih" or something similar.

For what it's worth, those of us born in the shadow of Mt. Evans have always said "ot" and "cot" and "sot" instead of "ought" and "caught" and "sought." What-ev-er!

Anyway. It's an interesting conceit that pronunciation never changes, even here in the Midwest where people like to think that nothing ever changes. Bierma pinpoints this shift to the area around the Great Lakes. Hmm, maybe it's the humidity....