reservoir.
ANNE V. GILBERT
avgilbert at PRODIGY.NET
Tue Apr 17 02:18:14 UTC 2001
Peter:
> This discussion amazes me, because I haven't yet heard my pronunciation
> mentioned: "reservor." At least that's how I learned it as a child. I
may
> have modified it as an adult after I had learned some French, because
> "reservwar" sounds right, too, and I'm not sure which I actually use
> nowadays. Certainly not "reservwah," which definitely sounds affected, at
> least from speakers of rhotic dialects.
>
> I think "reservor" is the pronunciation I've heard in the humorous useage
> in which the uneducated American renders "au revoir" as "ah reservor."
Holy moly! "Reservor" is what I always heard as a child and when I was
growing up. Then some people I knew who wanted to seem educated(although I
knew they'd come from a poor background), and listened to certain announcers
on NPR a lot, kept talking about "reservwah", although I knew perfectly
well they didn't know any French. It sounded weird to me. But maybe not to
other people in other parts of the country. . . .
Anne G
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