Kregg vs. Craig

[Herbert Stahlke]

If it weren't for "vegg", "Hegg & Hegg", and "plegg", I might buy that it's
lexical.  Rather, I think this is a relatively rare sequence--only "vague"
is fairly frequent, so it could just as well be an elimination of a not very
productive contrast.  Note that there are no lax vowel words in English that
form minimal pairs with these, so laxing them causes no problems.

Herb Stahlke

> on 7/19/02 5:37 PM, Gordon, Matthew J. at GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU wrote:
>
> > I think this one might be lexical. I'm pretty sure I have a lax vowel in
Craig
> > but definitely tense in 'vague' and 'Hague'.  Maybe Craig is influenced
by
> > Greg. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
>
> Maybe the spelling reflects earlier forms that are relevant here.  Would
any
> vowel except a "long o" sound right in vogue or rogue or a "long u" in
> fugue?  The -logue words seem not to have the "long o," perhaps because of
> some influence from the preceding syllables that I don't wanna figure out
> right now.  In a sense, it is a "lexical" matter.
>
> DMLance
>
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:   Dennis R. Preston [mailto:preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU]
> > Sent:   Fri 7/19/2002 12:53 PM
> > To:     ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Cc:
> > Subject:             Re: Kregg vs. Craig
> >
> > Vowel conflaters (almost always laxers), having completed their work
> > before /r/, and well into it before /l/, are now moving on; pre /g/
> > appears to be their next stop on this road to perdition. The regional
> > distribution is not exactly known, but the process seems to be more
> > rampant in the urban East but productive in many other areas
> > (Mountain West, South) as well; the Midwest, in my opinion, lags in
> > this matter.
> >
> > dInIs
> >
> > dInIs (who, in his football days, always took the 'field,' not the
'filled')
> >
> >
> >
> >>> Yesterday I noticed that my optometrist had taken on a new partner
named
> >>> Kregg Koons.  Aside from the obvious orthographic alliteration, the
spelling
> >>> of his first name reflects the pronunciation of Craig in Central
Indiana,
> >>> where the tense front mid vowel laxes, also in words like vague and
Hague.
> >>> I can't think of other words where I have the tense vowel before /g/,
and I
> >>> don't think it's very common.  I noticed twenty years ago that my
children
> >>> had this laxing, and many of my students have it as well.  Is this
regional?
> >>> What regions?
> >>>
> >>> Herb Stahlke
> >>
> >> Funny--I was just listening to an audio book yesterday in which a
> >> murdered character was identified by a friend as (what sounded like)
> >> "Kregg" and, asked how it was spelled (it was a last name), the
> >> friend responded "C-R-A-I-G".  I reflected that (although the story
> >> was set in NYC) there must be another dialect area at work, since for
> >> me there's a sharp distinction between lax "Kregg" or "Cregg" vs.
> >> tense "Craig".  The latter rhymes with "vague", "plague", and "the
> >> Hague", the former with "beg", "keg", "leg", "Greg", etc.
> >>
> >> larry
> >