donkey, monkey, honky

[Arnold Zwicky]

i'm with various other east coasters (larry horn, mark mandel,
etc.) as a donkey-monkey speaker.  once i left the nyc-philadelphia
axis, i met endless numbers of people who found my donkey pronunciation
risible - people from new england, the south, south midlands, and
more.  i've shifted to an [a] donkey, when i'm attending to what i
say, to try to avoid sounding ridiculous, but i'm not particularly
consistent, and the donkey-monkey version still sounds *right* to
me.

arnold