Blow-blue merger?

[ratammer]

Are there any accents of the English language pronounce [oU] as [u:], so that "blow" sounds like "blue"? Or does it restricted to certain words of some accents? I'm wondering because it seems to be happening at parts of this song by They Might Be Giants (lyrics here) - it's noticeable in the word "implode", and occasionally in "go". The singer is John Linnell, who's from New York. What do you think is causing it?

[Bob Johnson]

That's not [uː], it's something like [ɨʊ] or [əʊ], possibly nasalized. It's not an accent associated with NY state or city.

It could be an artifact of the horrible audio quality; compare http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcRve_FBS4Q#t=55s

Or he could be affecting an accent to make the song sound more interesting.

[ɡuː] would sound more caricature-Scottish.

[el morón]

When I read blow-blue merger I thought you were referring to "blue" becoming /bləʊ/, and not "blow" becoming /bluː/, which sounds iffy. And as to the video, I'm with Hito, I think it sounds more like /əʊ/, maybe /ɵʊ/ or something, but it's definitely not /uː/.

[AnTeallach]

Although they're not likely to be relevant to this video, there are dialects (e.g. in Norfolk) where some GOAT words have a [u:] type vowel, so that "boat" sounds to outsiders like "boot". The dialects I'm thinking of distinguish the reflex of Middle English /O:/, as in "boat" and "go", from that of Middle English /OU/, as in "blow", and it's the former which have [u:].

[Boşkoventi]

What do you think is causing it?

Singing. Song lyrics are notoriously hard to understand, as all kinds of weirdness goes on. I could barely even make out the words. (I agree about the sound quality.) But whenever he says a word with /oU/, like "know", the vowel sounds more like [7(:)] to me. (But "gonna" almost sounds like ["gAn@].)

But now that I look up the lyrics, yeah, he's definitely pronouncing "implode" as "implude", i.e. /Im"plu(:)d/. So yeah, singing weirdness.

(Note to others: the OP is clearly talking about /phonemes/ here, despite the egregious misuse of [brackets].)

[Nortaneous]

(But "gonna" almost sounds like ["gAn@].)

haven't listened to the song, but this could be either due to singing weirdness (that is, ["V] sounds ugly, so change it to the closest thing!) or "gonna" weirdness (it has /o/ in some dialects, so who knows what else it could have?)

[ratammer]

(Note to others: the OP is clearly talking about /phonemes/ here, despite the egregious misuse of [brackets].)

Ah, now I understand why the responses were confusing me... I had misrembered the rules on that stuff.

(But "gonna" almost sounds like ["gAn@].)

I thought that's how Americans pronounced it anyway. What would be more usual?

[makvas]

(But "gonna" almost sounds like ["gAn@].)

I thought that's how Americans pronounced it anyway. What would be more usual?

more like ["gVn@], though in my 'lect it's closer to ["g1n@]