New Jersey Dialects

[Mark A. Mandel]

 FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US> quoth:
>>>

According to several of my students, if you say 'Mondee,' you have a speech
impediment and need to go to therapy.  According to another, you sound like
people who say [Insert a goofy pronunciation], which they finally localised
as Wisconsin (of course, it has nothing to do with Wis). The point is,
Mondee is a goofy, silly pronunciation to them.  When I said Mondee in a
sentence, "It didn't sound SO bad."  My general impression is that the -ee
pronunciation is older or rural.  Perhaps spelling has influenced
pronunciation.

<<<

I checked "Tuesday" in Merriam-Webster Online
(http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=tuesday). They
give as prons (transliterated here into approximation of IPA):

'tu:z-di
'tju:z-
'(,)deI

or in quasi-English transcription

TOOZ-dee
TYOOZ-...
...-day (with option of secondary stress on the "day")


All of which suggests that they consider the "dee" pronunciation more
widespread. And THAT is consistent with Fritz's last two sentences.

OED Online gives only 'tju:zdeI ("TYOOZ-day"), but of course they're
English.

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