Kregg vs. Craig

[Donald M Lance]

on 7/19/02 5:37 PM, Gordon, Matthew J. at GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU wrote:

> I think this one might be lexical. I'm pretty sure I have a lax vowel in Craig
> but definitely tense in 'vague' and 'Hague'.  Maybe Craig is influenced by
> Greg. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Maybe the spelling reflects earlier forms that are relevant here.  Would any
vowel except a "long o" sound right in vogue or rogue or a "long u" in
fugue?  The -logue words seem not to have the "long o," perhaps because of
some influence from the preceding syllables that I don't wanna figure out
right now.  In a sense, it is a "lexical" matter.

DMLance

>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:   Dennis R. Preston [mailto:preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU]
> Sent:   Fri 7/19/2002 12:53 PM
> To:     ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Cc:
> Subject:             Re: Kregg vs. Craig
>
> Vowel conflaters (almost always laxers), having completed their work
> before /r/, and well into it before /l/, are now moving on; pre /g/
> appears to be their next stop on this road to perdition. The regional
> distribution is not exactly known, but the process seems to be more
> rampant in the urban East but productive in many other areas
> (Mountain West, South) as well; the Midwest, in my opinion, lags in
> this matter.
>
> dInIs
>
> dInIs (who, in his football days, always took the 'field,' not the 'filled')
>
>
>
>>> Yesterday I noticed that my optometrist had taken on a new partner named
>>> Kregg Koons.  Aside from the obvious orthographic alliteration, the spelling
>>> of his first name reflects the pronunciation of Craig in Central Indiana,
>>> where the tense front mid vowel laxes, also in words like vague and Hague.
>>> I can't think of other words where I have the tense vowel before /g/, and I
>>> don't think it's very common.  I noticed twenty years ago that my children
>>> had this laxing, and many of my students have it as well.  Is this regional?
>>> What regions?
>>>
>>> Herb Stahlke
>>
>> Funny--I was just listening to an audio book yesterday in which a
>> murdered character was identified by a friend as (what sounded like)
>> "Kregg" and, asked how it was spelled (it was a last name), the
>> friend responded "C-R-A-I-G".  I reflected that (although the story
>> was set in NYC) there must be another dialect area at work, since for
>> me there's a sharp distinction between lax "Kregg" or "Cregg" vs.
>> tense "Craig".  The latter rhymes with "vague", "plague", and "the
>> Hague", the former with "beg", "keg", "leg", "Greg", etc.
>>
>> larry
>