A nursery rhyme

[Laurence Horn]

>On Jul 21, 2004, at 1:30 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>>---------------------- 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: A nursery rhyme
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>--------
>>
>>>Now that's a first for me!
>>
>>I also (NYC, born 1945) grew up saying [ar at gan], with primary on the
>>first and secondary on the last syllable.  I too was ridiculed out of
>>it, along with my [a] vowel in "forest", "corridor", "moral", etc.
>>(when I was an undergraduate in Rochester, NY).  And I also natively
>>rhymed "forehead" and "horrid" as C[ar at d] in that particular rhyme
>>(which my mother was quite fond of), but I later spelling-corrected
>>"forehead" to the compound stress version (as in "car-head"), before
>>all those [a]s mutated into open o's.  So now I'm a
>>forehead-as-in-whorehead speaker, even though I know it's "supposed
>>to be" [for at d] as in "horrid" (with an open-o).  And I've switched to
>>[or at g@n]--still can't get that [i] for the middle vowel ("Orygun").
>>
>>larry
>
>Larry, the description of your former pronunciation of "forest," etc.
>sounds like a description of one of the features of St. Louis English.
>As a child, did you consider it hilarious if you could con someone into
>saying a number between 39 and 50, because "fort(y)" had fallen
>together with "fart(y)"?

No, I didn't know anyone who did this until I met someone from Utah
who claimed to pronounce "fort" and "fart" the way the rest of
pronounced "fart" and "fort" respectively.  For me, the vowel in
"forest" and that in "fort" were entirely distinct, the latter being
open o.

As for "FARRist", I guess there were no Omahans in Rochester, because
all the non-NYC kids at the U. of R. viewed that vowel as a
shibboleth of the NYC accent--in particular, in the context of the
"CARRidors"...er, corridors we lived on.

larry

>I remember a teacher who was a native of Omaha
>specifically using "forest" - our FARRist v. his FOURist - as his
>example in a fruitless attempt to demonstrate ("What? YOU're the one
>who talks funny!) that we St. Louisans spoke with a distinctive local
>"accent."
>
>-Wilson
>
>>
>>>The classic pronunciation of those who don't hail from the state is
>>>[origa:n], and I've also heard [ar at g@n] (both in contrast to the
>>>native
>>>[orig at n]).  But this is the first I've heard of the variant you report
>>>using, which sounds like a blend of the two "furriner" pronunciations
>>>cited
>>>above.
>>>
>>>Peter Mc.
>>>
>>>--On Tuesday, July 20, 2004 2:32 PM -0700 Jonathan Lighter
>>><wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Exactly.  And I used to say /a/ reg /a/ n  {Oregon) too till I was
>>>>ridiculed out of it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>*****************************************************************
>>>Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
>>>******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************