What’s the difference in how they are pronounced? Hanger, finger and singer all sound the same to me.
Maybe. I’ve noticed that many people will say they pronounce a word a certain way when they’re asked, but that’s not how they actually pronounce it when they engage in day-to-day speech.
Because many people wrongly believe that spelling determines speech, when they’re asked, they’ll often look at the spelling of a word and convince themselves that they pronounce it in some way that is not what they really say. Or because a certain letter is used in one particular spelling, they’ll imagine that it surely must change the way they say it, but really it’s only in their imagination, and part of a mistaken belief that a particular spelling must necessarily cause a particular pronunciation.
Cot/Caught are the same. Logger/lager similarly. When people say “cot sounds more like caht, and caught sounds more like cawt” I laugh because that’s just two ways to spell the same sound. I have heard people who pronounce them differently (wrongly), and they pronounce cot like cat, which is absurd.
And yes, all the ong words rhyme. The rhyming dictionary doesn’t lie.
“Finger” has a hard “g” in it. “Singer” and “hanger” just has a nasalized “n” in it, no actual “g” sound. In IPA, it’s /ˈfɪŋɡər/ vs /ˈsɪŋər/. It’s a pretty subtle difference, and not one that I can hear too readily. I think I will often pronounce the “g” in all those words, but it’s hard for me to tell.
Those US speakers (the majority, like I stated) who don’t have the caught/cot merger don’t pronounce “cot” like “cat.” The vowel is quite different in “cat.” The two pronunciation on m-w.com are pretty good:
Press the speaker icon here for “caught.”
And press it here for “cot.”
Those are the two distinct vowel sounds. None of them sound like the vowel in “cat”, though.
Both cot and caught sound like they are being pronounced the same to me. With slightly different pitch.
Since no one I know purposely pronounces cot/caught like the person saying cot does yet it’s still similar, it feels like they’re exaggerating to make it sound different.
Hmm…in my accent, I would say the differences are even more obvious.
I say: “Bob caught the ball. Bob slept on the cot. Caught. Cot. Chica(w)go. Chica(h)go. Aw. Ah.”
The two “Chicago” pronunciations are the two different ways you’ll hear it in the city. “Awwww” is what you say when you see something cute, like “awww…isn’t that sweet.” “Ah” is what the dentist tells you to say when he asks you to open wide and say “ah.” If you don’t make those distinctions in your dialect, they may be the same sound, but it’s clearly different here.
This.
New Jersey
I endorse this explanation. A similar comparison of those sounds can be heard (depending on just where you are) in “bot” (as in robot) and “bought,” “tot” and "taught, “sot” and “sought.”
Incidentally, though Chicago does not have the caught/cot merger, in some words, what would normally be an “aw” sound (/ɔ/) does become an “ah” (/ɒ/) sound. “Sausage” is one such example, where it often gets pronounced like “sahssidge.”
“Hey Helen. I’m going down to the Nicky’s at the end of the street to pick up some Polish sausages. You want to come with?”
and
“Hey Helen. I’m going down to the Nicky’s at the end of the street to pick up some Polish sausages. Would you like to come along?”
The first is me talking quickly in my Chicago accent. The second is me trying to minimize my accent (although not completely so–I end up eliding “would you” into “woodjew” in particular) and enunciating “sausage” in a way that keeps the “aw” sound distinct. The “nasal” sound is not part of my accent, but rather the quality of my voice. (Everybody seems to think I have a cold because of this–it has something to do with the interior structure of my nose or perhaps my nasal passageway. I always sound like I’m stuffed up, even when I’m not.)
Why yes. Yes it does.
Which is why I know what rhymes and what doesn’t.
“Singer” and “hanger” don’t have a “g” sound? Are they pronounced “seen-er” and “hane-er”?
NG makes two sounds in English:
NG /ŋ/ as in “sing” and “singer” (sing-er)
and
NG · G /ŋg/ as in “finger” (fing-ger)
Historically, NG was pronounced as N /n/ + G /g/, but that’s hard to say without turning it into NG /ŋ/ + G /g/. In most words, the final /g/ fell off, leaving only the /ŋ/. Some speakers retain /ŋg/ for words like “hanger,” most don’t.
/n/ ≠ /ŋ/ ≠ /g/.
No, they don’t. Like I said, the distinction is somewhat subtle, and I think in my own speech I pronounce the “g” sometimes (and it’s been commented on when I posted some audio examples a few years back of a word–I can’t remember which one–where I was carefully enunciating the vowel in the first syllable, and enunciated the “g” in the “inger” (or similar) ending. So some people do, indeed, notice it.)
Click here for “singer” and here for “finger.” The second one has a clear “g” that the first one doesn’t have. I can hear it in those examples, but it may be a little difficult to hear if you’re not used to differentiating it.
There’s a similar duality to the NT break in words/names like Kenton and Trenton. It’s probably as regional as anything else like it, but around here you have your Kent’n and Trent’n crowd competing with the Ken-ton (Kennon) and Tren-ton (Trennon) group. This also works with words like painting, printer, winter, etc.
If you read the transcription that Pulykamell has provided, you’ll see that no, they are not.
Of course they don’t, that’s the point. They all have a prominent “g” sound.
The person saying “singer” sounds different. It almost sounds like he’s slurring. The examples of “finger” and “hanger” sound the same. I think I say all three with the same “g” sound. I’m pretty sure everyone doesn’t pronounce these words differently.
The only people I have heard pronouncing singer and finger in the same way are non-native speakers.
You can also look in the dictionary, if you don’t believe us. And that doesn’t sound like a slur to me. That sounds like it’s “supposed” to be pronounced. And nowhere did anyone say that everyone pronounces these words differently. In fact, I explicitly said I think I often pronounce the “g.”
fin·ger [fing-ger] /ˈfɪŋgər/
And:
sing·er1 [sing-er] /ˈsɪŋər/
m-w.com:
fin·ger noun \ˈfiŋ-gər\
And:
1sing·er noun \ˈsiŋ-ər\
Wiktionary:
(General American) enPR: fĭngʹ-gər, IPA(key): /ˈfɪŋɡɚ/
And:
(General American) enPR: sĭng′ər IPA(key): /ˈsɪŋɚ/