The notes for words with *AR* representing /ə/

Here are the notes for *AR* => /ə/. Further to what I said previously about the greater need for notes when a vowel meets a sonorant, I've done some checking: there are 25  here and by comparison, in the digraphs book (which in due course will be relaunched as WVGT with Other Vowels) there are a total of 27 notes for all vowel sounds represented by all digraphs beginning with "a".

1. arbitrary
   This sound is in the third syllable. For the sound in the first, see above (/ɑ:/).
2. bastardized, militarized and notarized
   The Macmillan English Dictionary has no -ised version, though other dictionaries (for example, Collins English Dictionary) have.
3. budgetary
   The Macmillan English Dictionary has this vowel, with the option of nothing, and the audio exemplifies this three-syllable version.
4. carotid artery
   The Macmillan English Dictionary transcription has this vowel sound but the audio sample has /æ/ (in the first word).
5. charisma
   Students of English for Speakers of Other Languages should note the variation in charismatic - the second "a" becomes /æ/.
6. comparable and comparably
   With this sound, primary stress is on the first syllable. But an increasiingly common version with stress on the second syllable has the sound /æ/.
7. contemporary
   Both the -or- and the -ar- have this sound, and in colloquial speech they are often elided into a single /ər/.
8. contrary
   See also under /eə/ (with a distinct meaning).
9. corollary and coronary
   Note that these two have distinct stress patterns (although there is a tendency for the two to coalesce). The first has primary stress on the second syllable. The second has primary stress on the first syllable, and this is shown unequivocally in the Macmillan English Dictionary. But in many speakers of British English primary stress is on the first syllable in both.
10. dullard
    The Macmillan English Dictionary has this vowel sound, but a version with /ɑ:/ is common.
11. harassed and harassment
    The Macmillan English Dictionary recognizes this (increasingly common) as an alternative to the /æ/ pronunciation. For more about this alternation, see this blog
12. kaross
    This borrowing from South African English is transcribed like this (with stress on the second syllable) in the Macmillan English Dictionary, but the audio sample has /æ/ and stress on the first).
13. lanyard
    This escapes the usual exclusion for compond words, as the second syllable is not pronounced /jɑ:d/ and has nothing to do with boatyards or shipyards.
14. margarine and margarita
    The second syllable has this sound. See also under /ɑ:/.
15. necessarily
    The Macmillan English Dictionary has this, with stress on the first syllable, but a pronunciation with /e/ in the third syllable (also recognized by the Macmillan English Dictionary) is becoming increasingly common.
16. ordinarily
    The Macmillan English Dictionary has this, with stress on the first syllable, but a pronunciation with /e/ in the third syllable (also recognized by the Macmillan English Dictionary) is becoming increasingly common. Sometimes, when stress is on this syllable, the sound is /æ/.
17. parliamentary
    This sound is in the penultimate syllable. See also /ɑ:/.
18. primarily and summarily
    With this vowel sound, primary stress is on the first syllable. A pronunciation with stress on the second syllable, which becomes /e/, is increasingly common.
19. salaryman
    This escapes the usual exclusion of compound words as a salaryman is not just someone who earns a salary.
20. sarsaparilla
    This sound is in the third syllable. See also under /ə/.
21. scimitar
    The Macmillan English Dictionary transcription has this vowel sound but the audio sample has /ɑ:/ (which is common - in my experience, more common).
22. tartar
    This sound is in the second syllable. See also under /ɑ:/.
23. unparliamentary
    This sound is in the penultimate syllable. See also under /ɑ:/.
24. veterinary
    Note that although this word may have either four or five (and sometimes even three: /vetənri:/ ) the word veterinarian (see under /eə/) has six syllables (with the letters -ter- being fully enunciated).
25. vineyard
    This escapes the general exclusion of -yard compounds as it does not have the /ɑ:/ pronunciation.

AR, that be right

Here are the notes for words where the letters "AR" represent the sound /ɑ:/. In the first volume of the series (already published as When Vowels Get Together, but which will in due course become the first volume in the WVGT series, being WVGT ... with other vowels) it was not necessary to break the notes down according to vowel sound (there were, for example, only seven notes in the AE section, for all sounds). But sonorants are turning out to be much more ... erm ...notiferous? notigerent? trivibunda?

1. afar
   The Macmillan English Dictionary does not include this word. The link is to the Collins English Dictionary.
2. applecart
   This escapes the usual exclusion for compound words, because the word is only ever used in the collocation "upset the applecart" and is not necessarily a cart for apples (or, indeed, any kind of cart).
3. arbitrary
   This sound is in the first syllable. For the sound in the first, see below (/ə/).
4. archaeopteryx
   The Macmillan English Dictionary does not have the American English spelling.
5. archangel
   When "arch-" is used as a prefix (in English - so archvillain, archrival etc. but not archetype), the letters "ch" usually represent /tʃ/. In this case, though, the consonant sound is /k/.
6. armchair
   This escapes the usual exclusions of compound words, because it is not a chair for arms - as in, for example, armrest.
7. barbarian, barbaric, barbarism , and barbarous
   This sound is in the first syllable. See also under /eə/, /æ/, and //ə.
8. cardio-
   This prefix is used in many medical and physiological terms.
9. cartwheel
   This escapes the usual exclusion of compound words because, in its most common (metaphorical) use, it refers to an acrobatic movement that involves neither a cart nor a wheel.
10. compartmentalize
    The Macmillan English Dictionary does not have either compartmental or compartmentalise – though it does have compartmentalize with an audio sample marked as "British" (not that -ize spellings are necessarily unBritish [see this post for more details]).
11. farthing
    Students of English for Speakers of Other Languages should note that – unlike in the words anything or something  – the fricative is voiced.
12. hardball
    This escapes the usual exclusion of compounds because (in British English) it is only used in the collocation "play hardball" (borrowed from American English).
13. hardline
    This escapes the usual exclusion of compounds because it is used metaphorically (to mean "strict").
14. lodestar
    This escapes the usual exclusion of compound words because the fossil "lode" that appears in it has no current life as a free-standing word.
15. margarine and margarita
    The first syllable has this sound. See also under /ə/.
16. marshmallow
    This escapes the usual exclusion of compound words because in it the word mallow has no relevance to the sweetmeat.
17. narc
    An American English usage, not to be confused with nark (who is on the opposite side of the law).
18. parliamentarian and parliamentary
    This sound is in the first syllable. See also /eə/.
19. pockmark
    This escapes the general exclusion of compounds, as the word "pock" is rarely if ever used as a standalone word. And when it is, it is probably understood as a back-formation from the "compound".
20. quark
    The Macmillan English Dictionary lists only the sub-atomic particle, and does not give the alternative pronunciation (with /ɔ:/). This may reflect the fact that when James Joyce used it in Finnegan's Wake the context suggested to Gell-Mann (discoverer of quarks) that it should rhyme with the name "Mark". However, apart from a name for a kind of cheese, this word is the only English word with the sound /wɑ:/ represented by  the /w/+"ar" spelling; in fact, the sound /wɑ:/ represented by any spelling, is not very common (discounting the dialectal twa, a few foreign borrowings such as bwana and suave, and the comic-book conventional representation of an unhappy baby – wah!) . This uniqueness might explain some peoples' (sub-conscious) preference for the alternative pronunciation.
21. sarsaparilla
    This sound is in the first syllable. See also below /ə/.
22. sidebar
    This escapes the usual exclusion for "-bar" compounds because of its metaphorical use to mean a separate channel of communication.
23. tartar
    This sound is in the first syllable. See also below /ə/.
24. Tartare Sauce
    This sound occurs in both syllables of the first word.
25. unparliamentary
    This sound is in the second syllable. See also below /ə/.

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Update: 2018.04.13.13:45 – Added graphic, and added another neological candidate in red.

All is well

Before Easter, I met a kink (something which should reside in a Kink Port?) in the progress of #WVGTbk2. Suddenly, without precedent and without  (meaningful) warning, the Kindle Direct Publishing site started responding to my submissions with this:

 

There was "a problem" – pretty scarey. I went to the Help page, which of course didn't do what it said on the ti...tle. There was a tab marked Community, where  I thought I might at least find fellow-sufferers. I described my problem, hit Send, and got ... another meaningless error-message.

At this point I took a breath. Perhaps the two errors were related. Maybe KDP was running on a skeleton staff over Easter, and some critical function was down (as they say, if avoiding the odious IT-speak about experiencing an outage...

<autobiographical_note>

A kindred spirit, when I formed part of a three-man crack team with the task of [tasked with – "Oh Christ! That ever this should be" in the words of the Ancient Mariner] bringing English to the Digital Equipment Company) explained that Outage was a typo  for Outrage.

</autobiographical_note>

 ...). So I just had to wait for a day or two and try again.

Which I did, but to no avail; I got the same error.

But all is now well. There was an internal XHTML error in the cross-references, caused by my effort at ensuring consistency (by using a clone of my *AL* chapter as a "starter" for my *AR* chapter, and then deleting the text). I didn't delete the IDs (which was the point of the exercise – except that I forgot to update the IDs to point to new stuff). The poor compiler got its wires hopelessly tangled.

So all things have in a beautiful way, as the Ancient Greeks used to say when they meant everything was OK – παντα καλως έχει  (give or take a diacritic, which we didn't do). Now it's a simple matter of writing the thing.

 

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