Odd rhyme claim

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Wed Dec 16 05:21:31 UTC 2009


As Alice says, for _patriot_ actually to "rhyme" with _thought_, there would
have to be a noticeable secondary stress on the final syllable plus a
unreduced or at least barely reduced vowel.

Here again is the stanza:

Though loth to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My buried thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.

Joel may be right: / at / ("ott")  in both words.  But / at / in _thought_
in Concord in 1847? Hard for me to imagine.

JL































On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 11:56 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Odd rhyme claim
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 12/15/2009 11:00 PM, Jerome Foster wrote:
> >For a current example listen to Click and Clack, the Magliozzi brothers on
> >NPR.
>
> Do they say "ought" ("awt") -- which I can't relate to "patriot",
> even in New England, or "ott", as in the baseball player Mel -- which
> I can imagine in New England for both "patriot" and "thought"
> ("thott" -- the vowel a little like "cah" for "carr"?)  I'll have to
> listen next Saturday.
>
> Joel
>
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Tom Zurinskas" <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> >To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 7:22 PM
> >Subject: Re: Odd rhyme claim
> >
> >
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> >>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> >>Subject:      Re: Odd rhyme claim
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>"Patriot" rhyming with thought" wouldn't work for me from Conn. but for
> my
> >>=
> >>neighbor from Mass it would.  For her "ot" would be spoken "ought".  The
> >>le=
> >>tter "o" often took the "awe" sound.  She would call me ~Taumee (~au as
> in
> >>=
> >>"awe") and her son as ~Baubee (Bobby).  This is over 40 years ago.
> >>
> >>Tom Zurinskas=2C USA - CT20=2C TN3=2C NJ33=2C FL7+=20
> >>see truespel.com phonetic spelling
> >>
> >>
> >>=20
> >>=20
> >>>Date: Tue=2C 15 Dec 2009 16:27:28 -0500
> >>>From: wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
> >>>Subject: Odd rhyme claim
> >>>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >>>=20
> >>>---------------------- Information from the mail
> >>>header -----------------=
> >>------
> >>>Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>>Poster: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> >>>Subject: Odd rhyme claim
>
> >>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> >>------
> >>>=20
> >>>The poet John Hollander asserts that New England is "the only region of
> >>>t=
> >>he
> >>>nation" (or was in Emerson's time) "in whose dialect _patriot_ rhymes
> >>>wit=
> >>h
> >>>_thought_."
> >>>=20
> >>>Really? I'd have guessed that _patriot_ "rhymes" with _thought_ nowhere
> >>>o=
> >>n
> >>>Panet Earth. Or is Hollander being facetious at Emerson's expense? Yeah=
> >>=2C
> >>>that must be it. Sorry.
> >>>=20
> >>>On the other hand....I'm curious.
> >>>=20
> >>>JL
> >>>=20
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