Okay, I’m going to try again.
Is this the distinction?
rhotic:
[poɹk] [fɔɹk]/[fɒɹk]
non-rhotic
[poːk] [fɔːk]/[fɒːk] (this one almost starts sounding like “fuck” [fʌːk]/[faːk] to me)
If this is correct, then it’s a distinction that many English speakers—particularly in most of the United States—will not be able to pronounce or even hear. It takes me much practice saying them over and over to begin to get the hang of it.
Oh, well when you put it that way…
For what it’s worth, I was born in Scotland and completely get the difference between pork and fork.
I’m Canadianized and have been for some 40 years. They rhyme in my adopted dialect.
I hope this isn’t too offensive - it’s me speaking:
IPA experts can make of it what they like.
Yes. The 21 to 23 second stamps are the Scottish distinctions of which I mentioned.
Yes, indeed. I can’t describe the difference with IPA, but it is there.
American here (Boston area) confused how they could possibly NOT rhyme. What am I missing?
Accents?
I’m not really comfortable posting my voice online, but I just did so in order to answer that very question.
Rhyming is non-transitive?
I think Ascenray’s (post 81) IPA description matches PaulParkhead’s voice recording well.
Basically, for those few dialects where there is a distinction, “pork” begins rather close to “poor,” while “fork” begins somewhat towards “far.”
When I said “English”, I meant any of the dialects of English, including Scottish English, but also American, British, Canadian, New England, Southern US, …
I agree that defining what “rhymes in English” doesn’t really make sense unless you’re talking about a particular dialect. But that seems to be exactly what they’re talking about at that Wikipedia page linked in the OP. There aren’t separate Wikipedias for different dialects of English, like there are for different languages.
Americans should be the last of any English-speaking culture to dictate what rhymes with what.
Or maybe second-last.
It makes sense to me that some dialects would do this. To make a “p” sound, you have to put your lips farther forward than for an “f” sound, so it’s understandable that, for some people, this colors the quality of some vowels which follow.
That seems to match the transcription I attempted. Thanks!
Now I’m jealous of your accent.
Acsenray, sorry I misspelled your username. I was never very good at Pig Latin.
And obviously there are some rules that all English speakers would agree on - after all, we are able to communicate despite our different accents and dialects.
What does seem strange is the fact that there is, apparently, a Wiki editor who is overruling the statement that “pork” has rhymes. It very obviously does have rhymes to most speakers of English. I just ended up getting a little grumpier than was perhaps necessary on this thread because there appeared to be people who were unwilling to accept the opposite - in some accents, the words do not rhyme.
NP. When I lived in the USA, the accent would have been (had I not been monogamously married) quite useful for picking up members of the opposite sex. Or indeed, the same sex.
Don’t tell me the Rappin’ Rabbis are wrong.
Pork rhymes with gork, hork, jork, lork, mork, nork,rork,sork,tork, vork, and zork, as does fork. Anyone who doesn’t pronounce pork and fork to rhyme are putting on some ridiculous affectation.