A nursery rhyme

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 20, 2004, at 4:37 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIOU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: A nursery rhyme
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> At 04:12 PM 7/20/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>> On Tue, 20 Jul 2004, Barbara Need wrote:
>>
>>>> There was a little girl
>>>> And she had a little curl
>>>> Right in the middle of her forehead.
>>>> When she was good, she was very, very good.
>>>> But when she was bad, she was horehead?/hoarhead?/whorehead? ...?
>>>>
>>>> -Wilson Gray
>>>
>>> Except that forehead "should" be (used to be) pronounced something
>>> like forid (and therefore rhymed with horrid).
>>
>> <Should be?> No - IS. I have always pronounced forehead to rhyme
>> w/horrid. (se TX, AR, MO, LA, London, TX, TN)
>>
>> Bethany
>
> Not me.  I've always said fore-head (MN, MO, IN, OH).  But I'm
> reminded of
> Bloomfield's article on "Literate and Illiterate Speech" (Dale Coye
> reminded me of it too), where he writes, on the last page, "Similarly,
> 'forrid' is preferred to the logically more explicable 'fore-head'."
> This
> is in the context of "preferring" 'You had better do it' over 'You
> ought
> better (to) do it', "although the latter [ought better] accords with
> the
> general forms of our syntax."  He also says "'I dove' is not so good
> as 'I
> dived', 'I ain't' not so good as 'I'm not'" in terms of acceptability.
>  He's acknowledging the vagaries of "preference," of course, in the
> context of "good and bad" Menomini.  But when my students read this,
> they're always puzzled by 'forrid'--who on earth says that, they ask.
>

I, of course, say "forrid." However, on the other hand, who on earth
says, or even writes, "You ought better (to) do it," nowadays? And,
FWIW, in BE, The past of "You/you'd/you had/ better do it" is "You
better had done it."

-Wilson Gray