Quote Originally Posted by OC Richard View Post
Yes I struggle too, because as I mentioned the two states I've lived in don't make that distinction. I became very aware of it being around my wife's parents, one from Chicago and one from New York, both of which do make that distinction.

Here's a very nice video demonstrating the cot/caught split

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsvwYWoKCw0

and this guy's pronunciation is not as pronounced as some! With some American accents cot/top are done with a very open mouth, caught/off/ball/dog with very rounded lips, making the two extremely different.
Ah, ok, got it now.
To me, his 'short u' is pretty much as expected. His 'aw' sound isn't so very far off from some English accents, though slightly farther from Scots, but his 'short o' sounds to my ears like 'ah', so "cat", "Gad" and "Tadd"! He even illustrates this himself by including the word 'father' in his 'short o' list.

Thank you for illustrating that.