opry

[AAllan at AOL.COM]

I looked this up and sent this message to the inquirer. . . .

  The Dictionary of American Regional English has for its first two examples:

1891 Ithaca, New York: an alternate pronunciation for "opera"

1906 northwest Arkansas, "Opera, n. Play, theatrical performance. Example:
'Richard III was the opera last night.' Pronounced by the illiterate op'ry."

The earliest example in the Oxford English Dictionary is 1914. It's labeled
an Americanism, and it's clear that nobody in England says it.

The "Making of America" website has a poem from Eugene Field's 1896 book
"Songs and Other Verse," locating an "opry" in St. Joseph, Missouri:

With Brutus in St. Jo

Of all the opry-houses then obtaining in the West
The one which Milton Tootle owned was, by all odds, the best;
Milt, being rich, was much too pround to run the thing alone,
So he hired an "acting manager," a gruff old man named Krone -
. . .
"as I now recall it, it was twenty years ago
That we were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!"
. . . .
You can find the whole text at
http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/pageviewer?root=mm000111%2F1712song%2Fv0000%2Fi0
00%2F&tif=01260116.tif&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fmoa.umdl.umich.edu%2Fcgi%2Fsgml%2Fmoa
-idx%3Fnotisid%3DABA8211&coll=moa&frames=1&view=75

In Field's second book of verse, 1908, there are half a dozen examples,
mainly in one poem. It starts:

Modjesky as Cameel

Afore we went to Denver we had heered the Tabor Grand,
Allowed by critics ez the finest opry in the land;
And, roundin' up at Denver in the fall of '81,
Well heeled in p'int uv looker 'nd a-pinin' for some fun . . .

Here's the rest of it:

http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/pageviewer?root=mm000111%2F1713seco%2Fv0000%2Fi0
00%2F&tif=00620052.tif&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fmoa.umdl.umich.edu%2Fcgi%2Fsgml%2Fmoa
-idx%3Fnotisid%3DAAN7977&coll=moa&frames=1&view=75

All in all, there's no indication where it started; but it clearly was
associated with live stage performances and with less sophisticated speakers,
perhaps especially in the "west" rather than, say, in New York City.

- Allan Metcalf