I’m from Ireland. I think my pronunciation is typical here.

I would pronounce all the words in your set MA with the same vowel sound although many of my compatriots would pronounce “book” and with the /u:/ sound.
I would include “pulverize” there as well, although of course I spell it “pulverise”!

There’s a line in The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where Ford Prefect describes something (matter transportation I think) as “unpleasantly like being drunk”. Arthur Dent asks him “What’s unpleasant about being drunk?” and Ford replies “Ask a glass of water”. For me, this doesn’t quite work as a joke because I pronounce “drunk” (meaning “intoxicated”) differently from “drunk” (the past particple of “drink”).

Derek gave two sets, actually: They all use the same “u” sound that’s in pull, luck and jug, as opposed to the one that’s in cup or junk. I can’t recall ever hearing any of them pronounced differently. How are other people pronouncing them?

Derek’s set DA: {pull, luck, jug}
Since he said “they all use the same” we should add {wuss, bus, buss} to set DA.
Derek’s set DB: {cup, junk}

My mismatch with set DA is that I use the Quinion /U/ sound for “pull” but /V/ for both {luck, jug}. Further, I don’t have a different vowel for {luck, jug} from the one in {cup, junk}.

Mitch’s set MA: {pull} also {puss, wuss, put, book, foot}
Mitch’s set MB: {luck, jug, cup, jug} also {bus, buss, pus}

Todd, you say I’ve always pronounced wuss like pus, not puss (if that helps). It does help, in that it probably shows you do use the /U/ sound somewhere (puss). I’ll call that your B set:

Todd’s set TA: = “Derek’s five words” = DA + DB = {pull, luck, jug, cup, junk}, also {wuss} mentioned, presumably also{bus, buss}
Todd’s set TB: {puss}

I differ from TA in two ways: (1) I think “pull” doesn’t belong there really, and is an accident of Derek writing too fast and you reading too fast. (2) Also — and this is simply where we started from — I wouldn’t include “wuss”, but that’s just a difference we have observed.

Do you really say “pull” like the first syllable of “pulverize”? How do you say “pullet” and “bullett” and for that matter “bull”? I would put all those except “pulverize” in with my set MA = {pull, puss, wuss, put, book, foot, pullet, bullet, bull}. I know you have “wuss” n your other set, but apart from that do you have all my MA words with the same vowel?

Where I come from they all rhyme. They all use the same “u” sound that’s in pull, luck and jug, as opposed to the one that’s in cup or junk

Really? Well, where do you come from? I can’t think of a U.S. regional accent that would pattern as you describe. Sure you didn’t type something other than you intended?

I wish I could track down that thread where someone posted some pronunciations in IPA and others asked why their “rhymes with” or “same sound as in” indicators wouldn’t do. His answer, quite crrectly I thought, was that since the comparisons offered would also be subject to regional dialect variation (and idiosyncrasy), they weren’t always going to be of much help.

Maybe resorting to IPA is not necessary, but I think it’s always great to use a key or legend of some sort. Let me suggest the semi-standard ASCII transcription shorthand that has developed on the Internet. A good presentation of it is at the World Wide Words site, at http://worldwidewords.org/pronguide.htm . (I’ll leave it to all y’alls to follow his links to sme more-complete or variant presentations if you care to — I think 2 or more links throws a post into purgatory.)

Using Quinion’s “Text” symbols, the sounds and his examples are:

U - book, put, foot
V - dug, run, strut
and to make sure we’re not talking about this one I’ll throw in
u: - boot, too, group

[Yes, potentially this still could suffer from the same problem, BUT: at the link he also shows them in IPA; and the comparison words are well-chosen to not represent too much regional variation.]

With those in hand, my pronunciations, like Catlover’s, are

U - puss, wuss
V - bus, fuss

Derek seems to be saying

U (?) - puss, wuss, busses, pull, luck, jug
V - cup, junk

(Are you sure jug and junk aren’t together?)

George P @9 says that Sean Connery would have /u:/ for Pussy, like Lucy.

JHGRedekop @7 says Where I come from, “wuss” rhymes perfectly with “bus”. I think that must then be with /V/ — I don’t think many would say “bus” as /bUs/.

Where I come from they all rhyme. They all use the same “u” sound that’s in pull, luck and jug, as opposed to the one that’s in cup or junk. I can’t recall ever hearing any of them pronounced differently. How are other people pronouncing them?

I have a hard time believing that that the rhyming of “busses” and “wusses” pre-dates the Our Gang comedies.

(just kidding, I know what you meant)

Even though the “no more…” refrain predates Alice Cooper, I think his version of “Schools Out” was more of an inspiration than some of you might think. Consider the following excerpt from the song:

Well we got no class
And we got no principles
We ain’t got no innocence
We can’t even think of a word that rhymes