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variat</title></head><body>
<div>At 7:44 PM -0400 4/4/01, Dale Coye wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">I don't
know if there's such a thing as free variation either, and I also<br>
acknowledge the inaccuracy of self-observation, nonetheless, I did
collect<br>
some evidence on attitudes toward /i:/-ther vs. /aI/-ther and
EN-velope vs.<br>
ON-velope (AS 69.3, 1994). In a survey of Princeton
freshmen through a<br>
questionnaire I found both pronunciations of both words from all
corners of<br>
the North America, and of the respondents 10-30% (depending on
region) said<br>
they used both. Of those using exclusively /i:/, 1/3 to 1/2
(again depending<br>
on region) rejected /ai/ as 'snobby, pretentious' etc. Of those
using /ai/,<br>
only 18% rejected /i:/. So in other words, many more
people say they find<br>
/ai/ objectionable than find /i:/ objectionable.<br>
I found EN and ON in envelope in all regions of the
country, but the<br>
percentages varied widely from region to region. 40-60%
of EN- users</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">rejected ON
as pretentious. But ON users were equally intolerant of
EN.<br>
</font></blockquote>
<div><font face="Arial" size="-1">We seem to have similar splits and
evaluations, although no doubt with different percentages, for the
aforementioned ee-ther and ay-ther, as well as for the much earlier
discussed (but not yet on this thread) veys and va:z (for
"vase"). In each case the latter is typically seen as
pretentious, snobby, and/or British by those who use the
former.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="-1"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="-1">larry</font></div>
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