Dueling dialects

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:28 PM -0500 8/20/04, Mullins, Bill wrote:
>  > -----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.

Mel Blount, the great Hall of Fame defensive back for the Pittsburgh
Steelers, was another /bl^nt/-as-in-"blunt".  He was a native of
Vidalia, Georgia, like those great Hall of Fame onions.

Larry