pronunciation of "Syracuse"

[Alice Faber]

On 12/30/10 6:09 PM, Charles C Doyle wrote:
> On the TV broadcast of the oddly-named New Era Pinstripe Bowl football game (Syracuse vs. Kansas State) the announcer has been consistently pronouncing "Syracuse" as [sEr at kjuz].
>
> Of course, a historical (and orthographic) /E/ preceding /r/ has frequently come to be manifested as [I]--for instance, in "here" or "era"--but is the opposite process common?
>

That's a fairly common regional pronunciation. I'm not sure what the
limits are, but I suspect it's around Syracuse itself, as a lot of the
folks I hear it from are sports analysts and announcers whose degrees
are from there.

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Alice Faber                                       faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                            tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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