"Cooper" redux

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Oct 10, 2004, at 8:55 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> ...This third son's name is Cooper Manning. I've read in sports mags
> and heard on TV sports programs that Cooper insists that his name is
> absolutely *not* to be pronounced [kup at r]. Rather, it's to be
> pronounced [kUp@], wherein "U" represents the sound of the "oo" of
> "book." Apparently, the pronunciation [kup at r] sounds as ridiculous to
> white Mississippians as it sounds to black Texans.

[Up] rather than [up] is found in a few words all over the
south/southwest, in some pattern of distribution by
region/class/race/age/etc. that i don't understand.  i first came
across it in central kentucky, where it was used widely by people
ranging from upper-middle and upper class whites through working class
blacks (but not, by any means, by everybody).  and i've heard it from
speakers from other, scattered, parts of the south.

it's very much a lexical-item-by-lexical-item thing.  i've heard it in
the name "Cooper", in (chicken) "coop", in the name "Hooper", in the
noun "hoop", and the verb/noun "whoop".  that's pretty close, i think,
to the extent of this pronunciation.  [Up] speakers don't necessarily
have it in all of these words, nor do they all have it in the same
words.  even more impressively, some speakers have a lexical split.
jim harris of mit, for example, reports that he grew up with [hUp]
across the board ("hoop skirt", "barrel hoop", etc.), but when the hula
hoop craze caught on, he learned [hup] as the pronunciation in this
context.  and i believe there are people with the noun [kUp] but the
verb [kup].

other words have invariant [up]: (Betty) Boop, goop, loop, sloop,
snoop, stoop, troop.  plus, i think, everything with the spelling
<oup>: croup, soup, troupe, etc.

at least some people with [Up] in "Cooper" use it for everybody with
that name, regardless of the name-bearer's own usage.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)