You will see that there is some resemblance between the sounds of the two series. Thus we had a lax [æ] and a tense [ɛː] in the front vowels; and there are corresponding open o sounds when the tongue is raised a little at the back.
The articulation of these sounds is often unsatisfactory owing to the lower jaw not being moved down sufficiently, the teeth being hardly separated. The back vowels gain in quality (cp. § 36) if they are produced with lip rounding. The opening is large in the case of the sounds in which the tongue is only slightly raised; as it rises higher, the opening of the lips grows smaller, until for it is only the size of the end of an ordinary lead pencil. This lip rounding is rare with southern English speakers who have not had special voice training; they usually bring together or separate the lips without rounding.
The short vowel sound in not, what, etc., is a laxly articulated, open [ɔ], much more open than any o in French or German, with the front of the tongue even lower than for [ɑ]. It is lengthened a little before a voiced final consonant, as in dog [dɔg]; but it should never be made quite long. The pronunciation [gɔːd] for God is detestable. Before ss , st [st], sp [sp], th [θ], and f, ff, or ph [f], the long sound is occasionally heard. Determine whether in the following words you use the long or the short sound: loss, ost, froth, cross, cough, soft, coffee, off, officer, cloth, moss, gospel. Extend the inquiry to your friends.
When the short [ɔ] is in an unstressed syllable it either disappears entirely (as in lesson, where the [n] is syllabic, see § 24), or it may become [ə], as in minor [mainə], or it may become the sound [ö], which will be explained in § 44. Thus October is [ɔk´toubə] or [ök´toubə]; connect is [kɔ´nekt] only in precise speech, but usually [kö´nekt] or [kə´nekt].
The long [ɔ] in law, laud, lord is rather tensely articulated, certainly not so laxly as the short [ɔ].[49] Before voiceless sounds the vowel is somewhat shortened, as in short (compare shawl and shot). It is in standard English the only sound of stressed or (or oar) before a consonant;[50] there is no difference in sound between laud and lord, fought and fort, stalk and stork, cawed and cord. It is true that some speakers try to make a distinction. The long [ɔː] is not a simple long vowel, but really a diphthong of which the second element is [ə][51]; and in words containing a written r, these precise speakers somewhat lengthen the [ə] element. Thus they will say [lɔːᵊd] for laud, and [lɔːəd] for lord. It may be added that they generally do so only if the distinction has been spoken about, and they have expressed their firm belief in its existence; then, for a while, the [ɔːə] may be heard. A simple test, which the student should apply to his friends, is that of asking them to write down the word he utters. If he says [fɔːt], meaning fought, most people will write down fort, because the sound gives them no guidance, and the substantive is likely to occur to them first. Similarly, if he says [lɔːd], meaning laud, they will write down lord.[52]
The word lore, which hardly occurs in ordinary speech, is often pronounced [lɔːə] in order to distinguish it from law, the [ə] sound being much more distinct than in law, more, bore, etc. Consider the value of -ore- in more water, and in more ink.
There is much variation in the pronunciation of the words daunt, flaunt, gaunt, gauntlet, haunch, haunt, jaundice, jaunt, launch, laundry, paunch, saunter, staunch, taunt, vaunt. The general tendency seems to be in favour of [ɔː], not [ɑː].