"Cooper" redux

[Wilson Gray]

On Oct 13, 2004, at 9:05 AM, Sally Donlon wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Sally Donlon <sod at LOUISIANA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Cooper" redux
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>
> I'm coming late to this thread, but if you're talking about
> Archie Manning's third son, he isn't a white Mississippian;
> he's a white New Orleanian, born and raised Uptown.
>
> A small point, but one worth making before we get too far
> along in the generalizations. It has been my experience
> that, except for those who share the Big River accent,
> dialect is usually quite different between New Orleanians
> and Mississippians.
>
> sally donlon

WRT to these two dialects, your experience is mine, too. But I didn't
know where Cooper was born and reared, only that he *insists* that his
name be pronounced [kUp@]. This reminded of the fact that, in my
birthplace, Marshall, TX, if you use the pronunciation, [ku(p at r)], and
not [kU(p@)], people will literally laugh in your face.

-Wilson Gray

>
>
> Wilson Gray wrote:
>> 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
>>
>>
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