/or/ distinctions: TOUR

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 03:31 PM 4/14/00 -0400, you wrote:
>In a message dated 4/14/2000 10:56:07 AM, stevek at SHORE.NET writes:
>
><< I (Northern Cities) use both /tur/ and the unfortunate past tense /turd/ >>
>
>For the past of TOUR I say /turd/--don't you mean that you say /trd/? That is
>really unfortunate!!!

Actually, my mother did say both /t schwar/ and  /t schwar d/ (b. Minnesota
1906); but maybe the words were bookish, i.e. not normally in "kid (or
adult) language" for non-traveling Midwesterners of that time?

That gives us a possible third variant, though the TORE/TOUR/TOURnament
homophony is the one alluded to previously.  The latter is common in the
Philadelphia/Baltimore area, I believe (my ex from Balto had it), and I
hear it often in southern Ohio too.



_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm