"Cooper" redux

[Wilson Gray]

On Oct 12, 2004, at 2:15 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Cooper" redux
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> 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)
>

What I find interesting is the over=the-top reaction of [kUp@] speakers
to the [kup at r] pronunciation. if you say [kup at r] to black Texans, their
reaction is to laugh in your face. An otherwise-unknown white
Mississipian becomes famous for his insistence that he *not* be
referred to as [kup at r]. Both of these reactions seem extreme. Does it
bother me that my name is routinely hypercorrected to [hwils at n] when
I'm in Texas, even by people who've known me practically from birth? Of
course not. Would the fact that, in some areas of Mississippi, your
name will fall together with "honor" cause you to take umbrage? I doubt
that it would. so what's up with these good folk who come from home?

-Wilson