how do you say tournament

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 02:14 AM 3/16/01 -0500, you wrote:
> > With the march madness in full swing, I have noticed that tournament seems
> > to have two pronounciation. tour-nament,  and turn-ament.  The tour sounds
> > so weird to me.  What is the nature of this pronounciation difference?
>
>Jane P Parker  MI

And there's a third pronunciation: TORE-nament (unless that's what you mean
by tour-, though I assume you meant [tur], as in the French city).  As a
Northerner, I, like you, have turn-ament; but the Philadelphia and
Baltimore area has tore-nament.  I'm not sure who pronounces it with [tur];
it seems bookish to me.

So now we've described the "nature" of the difference, though I assume
you're more interested in the "source" or "cause," right?  That has to do
with vowel shifts--up, down, forward, and back.

_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm