southmore

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

> On 9/19/07, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: southmore
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------
>>
>> Do you mean, BE speakers treating /sauf/  as the "correct"
>> pronunciation of
>> "south" and hypercorrecting to that?

On Sep 19, 2007, at 1:52 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> As the "correct" BE pronunciation, yes.

i don't quite understand the claim here.

i do understand that many BE speakers believe that the name of the
compass point is (correctly) pronounced [sauf].  and i understand
that many BE speakers pronounce the name of the second year of
college [saufmo(r)].  one issue is the relationship between these two
facts, and another is the relationship between these facts and the
*spelling* {southmore}.

one possibility is [saufmo(r)] originates as a variant pronunciation
of [safmo(r)] (by what process i'm not sure).  the [sauf] portion of
[saufmo(r)] would then be open to a reanalysis as the compass point
[sauf], which is spelled {south}, so that the word pronounced [saufmo
(r)] would be spelled {southmore}.  there's then a factual question:
how do BE speakers who say [saufmo(r)] spell the word? (i'm assuming
they spell the name of the compass point {south}.)

or there might be variant pronunciation without following
reanalysis.  that would give the pronunciation [saufmo(r)] and the
standard spelling {sophomore} (or the extremely common spelling
variant {sophmore}, which reflects the disyllabic variant
pronunciation of the word).

Another possibility is that things start when BE speakers hear other
BE speakers saying [safmo(r)] and reshape the initial portion so as
to something meaningful, namely [sauf], the name of the compass
point.  that would lead to the spelling {southmore} for a word
pronounced [saufmo(r)].  (this is the same sort of demi-eggcorn
analysis that i suggested for [sauTmor], spelled {southmore}, in
other varieties of english.)

back to those other varieties.  i've now found a possible
intermediate stage between "soph(o)more" and "southmore", namely "soth
(o)more" (presumably with [T] rather than [f]).  modest number of
hits, e.g.:

and i've heard the Promo For Craig David's Sothomore LP, "Slicker
than your Average", and its totally Brilliant
http://macosx.com/forums/archive/t-23712.html

Most of our family is being supportive of our homeschooling
adventure. WE also have a 19 sothmore in college. We would like to
hear from others .
http://forums.about.com/dir-app/acx/ACDispatch.aspx?
action=message&webtag=ab-homeschool&msg=11079

arnold

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