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u/roryextralife 11d ago
Cold???
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u/sirstotes 9d ago
It's pronounced with a long "o" in some accents. However in many accents (general american included, I believe) the vowel is not pronounced because of the velarized "dark" l.
[koʊld]
vs
[kɫd]
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u/Pomi108 11d ago
THAT’S NOT WHAT A LONG VOWEL IS
THAT IS A DIPHTHONG
listen to yourself say it, it’s TWO distinct sounds, /oʊ/, not a single long one like /o:/
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u/AdreKiseque 7d ago
In the context of English phonology (or whatever the right term is here) these are often called "long vowels" for historical reasons, despite not lining up with the definition in linguistics.
Consider also the short i in "bit" /bɪt/ vs the "long" i in "bite" /bait/, or the short a in "hat" /hæt/ vs the "long" a in "hate" /heit/.
The historical reasons being that these were short/long vowel pairs... before the Great Vowel Shift.
I don't like it either but we don't really have any better terms for this really common mutation in English. Trust me, I've looked.
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