318 



BELL SYSTEM TECHNICAL JOURNAL 



and "notion." The comparisons are made with Table XVI of Dewey's 

 book, which does not include "the," and from which we have sub- 

 tracted the article "a." 



The outstanding differences between the vowel frequencies in 

 telephone conversation and written matter are the excess in conversa- 

 tion of "about," "pine," "pool" and the deficiencies in "pan," "pin" 



% 



20 



15 

 10 

 5 

 



RELATIVE OCCURENCE OF THE VOWEL SOUNDS 

 IN TELEPHONE CONVERSATION 



i 



i 





M 



m 





^ == 



^ 



n 



i 



I 



<^y/A Y/A 



I 



I 



i 



5 





 -5 



Fig. 



A IX ty ©■ AT 



vr ju, JUL <x (j^^oju Ju. 



2 z o, ya z uui _J a H z -za. i- cc, z u. ui _i _i 

 < u y z^ ?r s^ ^ u < o > 3q: 3 u oi -j -j -i o 



0. Q.I- <^ °-5|UJ U OL Q. 5 0.3 OU- ;:Idl' o d o 





8S' 





a Q. Q. 



U U I- § 

 Z (O 3 u 

 D- O ? O- 



TT 



n 



-rnn n 



TJ 



PERCENTAGES IN EXCESS OF THOSE FOR WRITTEN MATTER 

 4 — Comparison with written English — relative occurrence of the vowels. 



and "pot." The greater occurrences of "pine" and "pool" are almost 

 entirely accounted for by the greater use of the words " I " and "you." 

 The deficiencies mentioned do not, on analysis, seem to depend on one 

 or two words, but rather on the whole vocabulary, except that of the 

 increase in the unstressed vowel denoted by "about" nearly 1.7 per 

 cent comes from the vowels of words which in the study of written 

 English were classified under "pan." 



Among the initial consonants (Fig. 5) the greatest change is in the 

 occurrence of "y," which is much more frequent in conversation. 

 This again is largely caused by the pronoun "you." Much of the 

 increase in "g" may be traced to the greater use of "get" and "go." 

 The sounds "w" and "t" are the most frequent sounds in written 

 English, as well as in conversation. 



Figure 6 shows that in the case of the final consonants the sounds 

 "t" and "1" are notably more frequent in conversation than in written 



