<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 5.50.4134.600" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>There's a Mazda ad on TV currently in which a
formally dressed young boy says /zUmzUm/ as a Mazda goes zooming by. In
the background, a male vocal group that does not sound like an American dialect
(a colleague thinks it's Ladysmith), sings "zoom zoom zoom" also using the lax
vowel. The first OED citation for "zoom" is 1898, and the only
pronunciation I've found in several dictionaries (OED2, AHD3, LDOCE, etc.) has
the tense vowel. Even William Espy's Words to Rhyme With gives no words in
-/Um/. /Um/ does occur in some English dialects in words like "broom" and
"groom". In my own SEMichigan speech "room" laxes if it's the second
element of a compound ("bedroom, livingroom"). Since "zoom" is imitative
and comes into the language long after the partial laxing of /u/ in Early Modern
English, where is /zUm/ coming from? How widespread is it? Does
it have a lax vowel in this ad because it's reduplicated? Why
did the producers choose the lax vowel consistently?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Herb Stahlke</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Ball State University</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>