"The Battle [and bottle] of Bataan"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Mon Jan 14 17:52:23 UTC 2013


On Jan 14, 2013, at 12:42 PM, Charles C Doyle wrote:

> I notice, to my surprise, that some dictionaries (e.g. M-W 9th Collegiate) now show [neesh] as a variant pronunciation of "niche."
>
> Regarding the name "Gandhi":  Hasn't the pronunciation with ash been most common in Britain (and perhaps India),

as in "Gandhi-dancer"?

> with "aa" widely heard among Americans (trying to out-Brit the British?)?

Not sure about out-Britting the Brits; they're much more likely to nativize "pasta" to rhyme with "Rasta" or "Shasta" than we are.  (I think /paest@/ might also be used in Canada?)

Then there are place names like "Colorado" and "Nevada", where locals are more likely to domesticate the stressed vowel to ash than easterners are.

LH

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