Another "$100 Misunderstanding" (1)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Aug 13, 2004, at 1:57 PM, Bethany K. Dumas wrote:

>>>> is clearly the preferred - by me, any way - pronunciation.;-) BTW,
>>>> my
>>>> late stepfather, a native of Saint louis, though of Arkansas
>>>> ancestry,
>>>> made this odd distinction in his speech: noun = "IN veh lup"; verb =
>>>> "in VEH lup."
>
> I cannot tell from your spelling what vowels you are indicating, so
> am not
> referring to those...

well, but that's where all this started.  wilson's original observation
was about the vowel in the (stressed) first syllable of "envelope": /a/
or /E~I/.

reasoning from first principles, you could take either of these as the
"fancy" pronunciation: /a/, because it at least makes a nod towards
french; /E~I/, because it's *spelled* with an <e>.

arnold