"boogobs" query

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 08:41 AM 10/4/99 -0700, you wrote:
>When I was in 8th grade, I asked my English teacher
>(who was Canadian and promptly pointed out some of the
>peculiarities of Utah inglush) why "been" was
>pronounced as "bin" and why "again" was pronounced
>like "agen" (please excuse the imprecise phonetics and
>I hope you understand what I mean); she said that was
>just the way it was.  Since the Fab Four and Prof.
>Henry Higgins of "My Fair Lady", I've noticed that
>"again" and "been" are more frequently pronounced as
>they are in (at least parts) of England and as their
>spelling indicates they are to be pronounced.  Maybe
>the addition of "t" to "of'en" that is now so
>commonplace is from the same influence.
>
>Jim SMITH
>
>
Good examples of language bias!  Your Canadian teacher had no trouble with
North American 'bin' and 'agen' but disliked Utah speech.  However, I
disagree that British 'been' and 'again' are spreading in America, though
they're (variably) common in eastern Canada.  In fact, 'bin' is lowering to
'ben' in much of the U.S., thus completing a process of laxing and
subsequent lowering.  BTW, Peter Trudgill has an article showing how the
Beatles actually tried to Americanize their English in the early days, to
imitate their models in rock and blues music.  And I doubt that "My Fair
Lady" really had much influence on North American English!