Preakness

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:38 AM -0700 5/28/04, Peter A. McGraw wrote:
>I've never heard a local pronounce it, so the media are my only source, but
>the only pronunciation I recall ever hearing is [prikn at s].
>
>Peter Mc.

Me too.  It may be worth mentioning that the Preakness is run at
Pimlico, in Maryland, and thus has no obvious connection with the New
Jersey town, which for all I know is still pronounced as in "break".
But if so, perhaps the "squeak" pronunciation of the former has
influenced the pronunciation of the latter.

Larry

>--On Friday, May 28, 2004 2:26 PM -0400 Damien Hall
><halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU> wrote:
>
>>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).
>>
>>Damien Hall
>>University of Pennsylvania
>
>
>
>*****************************************************************
>Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
>******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************