"Connecticut accent" in the Times

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:18 PM -0400 9/9/04, Wilson Gray wrote:
>On Sep 9, 2004, at 2:14 PM, Charles Jones wrote:
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Charles Jones <cejone01 at MOREHEADSTATE.EDU>
>>Subject:      Re: "Connecticut accent" in the Times
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>
>>Laurence Horn wrote:
>>
>>Bostonians and New Yorkers also pronounce their ''o's'' and ''a's''
>>differently from each other and from Connecticut.
>>
>>   Ms. MacKenzie said ''forest'' and ''orange'' are pronounced FORE-ist
>>and OR-inge in Connecticut, but as FAR-ist and ARE-inge in New York.
>>
>>I knew a gentleman from Louisiana that pronounced his o's and a's very
>>much like
>>that of these described in NY.  It seems unlikely to me that these
>>pronunciations would be similar at all.
>>
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>
>FAR-ist and Are-inge in New YARk?! That's sounds like my St. Louis
>accent!
>
I grew up with the unrounded script-a in "FAR-ist" and "AHR-inge",
"MAHR-uhl" and "CAHR-uhduhr" in NYC, and it was only when I went
upstate to the U. of Rochester that they were driven out of me, and I
adopted the open-o (although I think this actually has been a
relatively lively variable for me ever since).   But nobody in NY
would say "New Yark"--the stereotype is "Noo Yawk" and while I was
rhotic, "Noo York" with an open-o would come pretty close.  This
suggests that the earlier words should really be rendered as
"FAH-rist" rather than "FAR-ist", since what's crucial is the open
syllable in such cases.   The vowels of "core" and "four" were quite
distinct from those of "coral" and "forest".  This is lexical,
though, since "oral" had an open-o and thus didn't rhyme with "coral"
and "moral".

L