[Ads-l] Dorchester

[Joel Berson]

I suspect Amy is right about origins -- the New Englanders and Marylanders I think came from different parts of England.  And New Englanders were dissenting Protestants, while Maryland was open to Catholics and perhaps also attracted Church of Englanders.

P.S.  Amy, of Worcester, hears "Well, it's not /wooster/, it's WUH-stuh. And I think I hear DUH-chester 
among the non-rhotic."  But that's in the sticks?  I, not from Massachusetts, rhotic, and hearing the cultured (not cultchah'd) broadcast announcers of the metropolis, hear wooster and door-chester.  But perhaps, having grown up in New York City, I can't hear non-r's.


Joel

      From: Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2016 11:41 AM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Dorchester
   
I'll also add that in MD the pronunciations are more internally 
consistent: in MD the county is pronounced rhotically /war-chester/, and 
I think they have a /door-chester/ as well. Again, I think origins of 
the people, place names, and the influence of spelling are at play here.

---Amy West

On 4/21/16 9:48 AM, Amy West wrote:
> On 4/21/16 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
>> Date:    Wed, 20 Apr 2016 08:08:08 -0700
>> From:    "James A. Landau"<JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM>
>> Subject: Dorchester
>>
>> My daughter, who lives in Canton, Massachusetts, asks:  If Gloucester is pronounced/glahster/  (I taste not the Pierian spring of IPA) and Worcester is pronounced/wooster/, why isn't Dorchester pronounced/dorchster/  or/dorster/?
>>
>> - Jim Landau
> Well, it's not /wooster/, it's WUH-stuh. And I think I hear 
> DUH-chester among the non-rhotic. So, I think the question is really 
> why isn't it *DUH-stuh? (And I may have the stresses wrong: I'm not a 
> phonologist)
>
> I think history and spelling prons play a role. Yes, historically that 
> -cester and -chester are the same word. So, historically the -rc- and 
> -rch- clusters *should* be the same/similar. However, I'd actually 
> look to where the settlers here came from England, and where those 
> names in England come from, and how they were historically pronounced 
> there. [I'm told by a former student of mine who just studied at U of 
> Worcester (UK) that they use the same/a similar non-rhotic pron 
> (currently) for the name.] The difference in pron. may actually be 
> really, really old: the split may be rooted in the various Old 
> English/Anglo-Saxon regional dialects. I'd have to do some more poking 
> around instead of just responding off the top of my head.
>
> Note the spelling difference: that may either represent a regional 
> pron difference of that -c- when the names were brought over or it may 
> have influenced folks here to make one -c- sibillant(?) and not the 
> other.
>
> ---Amy ("What? I should actually look stuff up?") West
> rhotic resident of Worcester


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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org