"Cooper" redux

[Wilson Gray]

On Oct 13, 2004, at 10:03 AM, Alice Faber wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Cooper" redux
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Wilson Gray said:
>> On Oct 12, 2004, at 2:15 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>
>>>  Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>>>
>>>  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.
>
> <snippage of Arnold's post>
>
>>>  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?
>
> Two reactions. First, my last name is Faber, with one R [febr]. It
> drives me batty to be called Farber, with 2 Rs [farbr]. It's one of
> two grudges that I still hold against my first grade teacher.

I've almost been on your teacher's side of that equation. I met an
Australian named, so I thought, "Ken Foster." Luckily, my girl friend
at that time was also Australian. She explained to me that, in my
idiolect, his name should be pronounced "Forster." I must admit that I
did find this a bit humorous. Whereas any American can reproduce the
Aussie pronunciation of "Forster" with reasonable accuracy, no Aussie
can reproduce the American r-ful  dialect pronunciation of this name
except by writing it down. [No, I don't consider the preceding to be
empirically true. I use it only as a rhetorical flourish.] Which
reminds of the time that an Englishman tried unsuccessfully to
distinguish "wander" from "Wanda," though he thought that he had: "Oh,
I see. It's [wan'd^], not [wan'd^]!", stressing the final syllables so
as to accentuate the distinction that he hadn't made.

(The other is that she made me pretend to sound out words even though I
> could already read perfectly well, because reading fluently was
> "showing off".)
>
> Second, I heard Peyton Manning interviewed on Mike and Mike in the
> Morning this morning. His vowel in his brother's first name was not
> [U]; it was far fronter than that, approaching a slightly rounded [I]
> or barred-i (there are limits to what I can do with ASCII phonetics!).

I know. But, as you yourself note, there are limits to what a person
can symbolize, using only ASCII. In any case, thank you for providing a
description that is more accurate than [U].

-Wilson Gray

>
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> Alice Faber
> faber at haskins.yale.edu
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