this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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In the US, it really doesn't.
The proper American phonetic for sauce is "saas". The proper american phonetic for cross is "craas".
I think you MIGHT be able to defend it for British English, which use phonetics "kros" and "haws" and "saws" for above words. But I would say "aws" and "os" phonetics are close enough to to count as rhyming by most standards, and classical poetry uses far less clear rhymes commonly.
I (Brit) didn't even recognise it as intended as a rhyme until I read this comment section
That's really interesting. I ran it through a british tts and it sounded closer than a lot of classic poetry rhymes.. Yeah, it's not exactly the same, but it's similar.
Run that string through an American English TTS, and you'll see exactly how perfect it rhymes.
If you check back on this thread, I've posted audio of how I say it. I think it's 'cross' that's really different - US doesn't really have that short o sound but has an 'aw' instead. If I say 'criss craws applesauce' then the intended rhyme makes itself clear.
"Cross" is very short in British English dialects, meanwhile "sauce" is much closer to "source", to the point that they're almost indistinguishable. American English dialects tend to elongate the "ahh" sounds.
Sauce: I used to speak in American, but now I speak in bastardised English where I trip off the path and whipe my ass on the grass, but no one ever knows how I might pronounce those words.
Have you ever been to Bristol? The way they pronounce "half" reminds me of American accents. Not "half" like the Queen's English, not "haff" like some places oop norff, but "haaaff" said with kind of a wide mouth. It perhaps makes sense, as Bristol was a port town that a lot of early immigrants to America started from.
That and Scottish kids. I think they watch so much YouTube these days (particularly up in the middle of nowhere) that they pick up a twang of American.
I wanted to say something about the influence of West Indian immigrants on Bristol culture, but I don't know enough about it to be confident of not putting my foot in my mouth. It's an interesting place, for sure.