Dueling dialects

[Mark A. Mandel]

Wilson Gray writes:
>>>>>>
 While chatting with the locals down home in Texas, my brother mentioned
that the star of a certain movie was Gary Cooper. He pronounced the
name in the St. Louis dialect, so that it rhymed with "merry souper."
Said locals immediately burst into peals of laughter and kept asking
him to repeat the name so that they could laugh some more. [...]

After I had related this story to a European-American friend who wasn't
a St. Louisan, he commented, "Well, no wonder they laughed at him.
Everybody knows that the proper pronunciation is [gaeri]!"
 <<<<<<

If anyone cares about it, of course, the proper solution is "Well, how did
*he* pronounce it?"

-- Mark A. Mandel
[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]