beyond the pail

[Matthew Gordon]

"crick" is a nice example of the power of accent prejudice because it is
in origin a Northern and Midland form (at least per Kurath 1949) whereas
the tense-vowel form predominated in the South. However, many people
associate 'crick' with the South, because, I would suggest, it has
become stigmatized and anything that sounds wrong must be southern.
The lax vowel variants of 'roof' and 'root' (which used to have a
similar regional distribution to 'crick') haven't attracted as strong a
stigma as 'crick'. I would guess this is because there are other "oo"
spellings with a lax vowel (e.g., book, look) whereas "ee" is usually /i/.

Anne Gilbert wrote:

>Allen:
>
>
>>Thank heavens I grew up in Oregon. For me, "creek" and "bucket" are normal
>>and "crick" and "pail" are not. I would probably STILL be in 3rd grade ...
>>
>>
>
>While "bucket" and "creek" are more usual(nowadays, at least), in My Fair
>State of Washington, I've actually *heard* "pail" and "crick" -- more often
>in my childhood than now.  My father used to refer to a given "crick" all
>the time.  He was born in Missouri, and my grandfather spent much of his
>growing-up life in Missouri, so that's probably where the "crick" came from.
>But my father was an educated "professional", so I'm kind of puzzled as to
>where this kind of "linguistic discrimination" is coming from.
>Anne g
>
>
>