last laugh on awe-dropping

RonButters at AOL.COM RonButters at AOL.COM
Sun Feb 8 15:48:46 UTC 2009


In most (all?) varieties of American English, [a] reduces to schwa when 
unstressed. The pronunciation of "LaGuardia" with two schwas is totally normal in 
ordinary speech cadence. It is totally unremarkable.

In a message dated 2/8/09 9:25:30 AM, Berson at ATT.NET writes:


> At 2/8/2009 10:04 AM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com> wrote:
> >I checked the written transcript of Flight 1549 talking with New
> >York TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control).  There were only a
> >few words with "awe".  One, repeated several times, was "LaGuardia",
> >which is most often pronounced /l@ 'gwawr dee @/.  This is odd,
> >since it is an Italian name which Fiorella pronounced I don't know
> >how but his ancestors pronounced /lah gwahr dee ah/.
> 
> l@ by analogy with "the"?
> 
> BTW, it's "Fiorello", not "la".  And while I listened to his reading
> of the comics, I can't attest to his pronunciation, only mine --
> which is /lah gwahr dee ah/.  Are recordings of his readings
> extant?  Possibly he introducing himself.
> 
> Also BTW, checking on the year of his readings, I notice that the
> Wikipedia article separates La Guardia.
> 
> Joel
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> 




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