wheel barrels?

[Sally Donlon]

Do eels have marrow?

sally donlon



Rachel Henderson wrote:

> Umm....ok....note in advance that my skills are dusty, so I now belong to
> this list..and have been reading like crazy.  That probably explains my
> amateur input to, but that's O.K., we all have to start somewhere....no?
>
> I would not say 'eel marrow' as 'marrel' either.
>
> But I can believe that English speakers would mistake wheelbarrow for
> wheelbarrel, not just due to natural articulation habits, but, also quite
> likely, because actual wheelbarrow, in a way, is akin to a barrel with a
> wheel (but with the top removed).
>
> By the way....my 15 year-old son just walked in the room, so I asked him how
> to spell wheelbarrow.  He spelled it correctly...and chuckled when I told
> him that I had to do a double-take on the word (it's been a long time since
> I had pondered the spelling), and he professed immediately that he thinks
> the spelling was changed from -barrel to -barrow at some point in recent
> (100) years because of southern accents.....hehe.....
>
> Rachel Henderson
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 12:07 PM
> Subject: Re: wheel barrels?
>
>
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail
>
> header -----------------------
>
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>Subject:      Re: wheel barrels?
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> -----
>
>>At 10:48 AM -0500 8/11/04, Lesa Dill wrote:
>>
>>>I had always assumed "wheelbarrel" was the simply an example of
>>>regressive assimilation.  Perhaps all explanations for similar
>>>language variation are equally multidimensional.
>>>
>>
>>I would still maintain that the prior existence of "barrel" is
>>crucial here.  Consider the local delicacy of "eel marrow"--would we
>>expect this to come to be known as "eel marrel" by regressive
>>assimilation?  Possible, but I would wager unlikely.
>>
>>Or "oil tarrow" (something to do with burning candles) > oil tarrel?
>>
>>Google turns up a Bill Tarrow (spokesman for Washington State
>>Employment Security); we could ask him if he's called "Tarrell" more
>>often than other non-l-final members of his family; ditto for Phil
>>Farrow (captain of Holderness boys' hockey team) vs. Mia.
>>
>>larry
>
>
>