Dueling dialects

[Mullins, Bill]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wilson Gray [mailto:wilson.gray at RCN.COM]
> Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 3:31 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Dueling dialects

> >
> > Blount County, TN is "blunt".
>
> At one time, there was a Professor Benjamin Blount at the U of Texas.
> He likewise pronounced his surname "blunt." Unfortunately, I didn't
> find this out until *after* I had referred to him in public discourse
> as "blount," rhyming with "mount."
>
> -Wilson Gray

And possibly for the same reasons, since so many early Texans were
originally Tennesseans.  Blount counties in TN as well as AL are named
for William Blount, who was Revolutionary War soldier, a delegate to
the Constitutional Convention for NC, a territorial governor of TN
and a senator after it became a state.

Perhaps some of his descendants made the trip west.