Morse

[Lyons, Jennifer M]

Strange.
I grew up in Pittsburgh, and so did my mom.  I just moved to Columbus about
a year ago, and I hadn't heard the "Morris" ponunciation until this morning
(the WOSU traffic guy used it when talking about the road you mentioned).
I'll have to poll my locally-raised coworkers.

Why I never noticed that my mom pronounces it "Morris" and I don't, I'll
never know.  (I figured it out when she started calling that road "more-see"
road and I tried to correct her pronunciation.  She said, "Oh, so it's
Morris Road".  I replied, "No, Morse, like in Morse code" - and she said
"That's Morris code!")

Jen

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Arnold Zwicky [mailto:zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU]
> i ask because one of the linguistic surprises of columbus, ohio, when
> i moved there in 1969, was this very pronunciation for Morse Road (a
> major east-west road on what was then the far north side of town).
> pretty much everyone who'd grown up in columbus had this
> pronunciation.  just for this one item - not for "horse" or "force" or
> "course" etc.  i'm not even sure that the "Morris" pronunciation
> extended to "Morse code".