reservoir.

[Dennis R. Preston]

Well, over in Nawbny itself, this pronunciation (two syllables) was
so common that it was even joke-spelled that way on a paper place mat
at a local restaurant.

Many Nawbnians also called the thing up on Silver Hills which
supplied us with our (shudder!) water a reservoir without no /w/.

Of course,there was a lot of local variation, and you could have
missed these more down-home pronunciations depending on who you hung
around with (especially, perhaps,  if that's "whom you hung around
with" for you). Course I don't want to foment no class warfare. Got
to look at all social strata in the linguistic enterprise.

dInIs


>In a message dated 4/17/01 7:26:36 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes:
>
>>  Not unless the Pacific Northwest includes Louisville, KY.
>>
>>  dInIs
>>
>>  >Peter, Anne and I agree, so it must have something to do with the Pacific
>>  >Northwest. "Reservor" is what I grew up with. >>
>
>I also grew up in Louisville, KY (the East End, near Bowman Field) and to the
>best of my recollection that big artificial lake at the Crescent Hill pumping
>station was the "Resevwar".  ("r" on both ends but not in the middle).
>
>       - Jim Landau
>
>P.S. Someone on this list mentioned "Nabany"  (the town across the river from
>Louisville).  I can recall several variations of the name "New Albany" but I
>cannot recall any that did not have four syllables.

--
Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736