naught

[Noelia]

I'm going through my "frank sinatra fascination" period and I came across this word in one of his songs.

"... then he has naught"

First, I though it was related to "naughty" which didnt make any sense, then the powerful OSD said it's an old way to say "nothing" which does make sense.

And so the 2 questions I have with this word are:

1) Is it very very old, would you use it in everyday's speech or only for poetry, songs, and stuff like that?

2) Is it pronunced like "not" ?

[Robie]

I would not use naught in every day speech (haha) and I pronounce them exactly alike.

The only time I'd use it in speech is maybe when I'm being melodramatic and I might say "It was all for naught" but it's a very, very rare thing for me to use it at all.

[sendai]

Naught rhymes with caught and bought. Some people pronounce them like "not" and some don't. I don't. Very broadly speaking people who grew up west of the Mississippi will pronounce them the same.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_the_low_back_vowels#Cot-caught_merger

I used to have a friend named Dawn, and it always confused me why her family called her Don. Turns out that they pronounced the two names identically. Apparently Robie does too.

There are a couple of set phrases that use naught, but otherwise it's archaic.

Then there's "aught", an archaic word for zero. Grandpa Simpson says it a lot: Back in aught six we used to.... (back in '06)

[Noelia]

mmm interesante.... Me gustaría saber ahora como lo pronunciaría John y despues voy a tomar una desición sobre cual voy a usar para esta palabra.

Gracias

[johnr]

Hola todos,

Noelia - pronunciaría como dijo Paul, es decir que rima con 'caught' y bought', pero me imagino que suena una poco diferente por mi acento.

[Robie]

Me interesa saber como pronuncian 'caught' y 'bought' por John y Paul. Estoy de acuerdo con ellos que 'naught' rima con las dos palabras. Pero para mi, 'caught' 'bought' y 'naught' riman con 'not' también.

Cuando Paul vuelva a EEUU, tengo que encontrarme con él para comprar. Voy a estar en Minneapolis en los últimos partes de julio o temprano en agosto.

Robie

[sendai]

Para comprar qué cosa?

No creo que llegue antes de mediados de agosto...pero seguro que vas a volver a MN en algún momento.

Con mi acento, caught tiene casi el mismo vocal que Paul. Para darte una idea....