Preakness

[Alice Faber]

Damien Hall said:
>As I'm not American, people should tell me if I am simply behind the times.
>But
>I wonder whether I have noticed an old sound-change very belatedly coming to
>completion.
>
>>>From my reading, the name of Preakness (NJ) is a member of the small class of
>words (eg *great*, *break*) which were not included in the
>sound-change whereby
><ea> came to be pronounced [i:];  according to my reading, Preakness, NJ is
>pronounced [preiknIs].
>
>But, twice in the last two days, I've heard National Public Radio announcers
>pronounce it [prikn at s] ([@] = schwa).  Is this widely-attested?  Could we be
>witnessing a change in the normative pronunciation?
>
>If we are, I wonder how Leakey, Texas is now pronounced.  I've read that it's
>normatively [laeiki] ([ae] = single phoneme).

I don't think I've ever heard Preakness pronounced with any vowel
other than /i/ in the first syllable, at least in reference to the
horse race. I don't think I've ever heard the town name pronounced.
--
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Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                                     fax (203) 865-8963