"Connecticut accent" in the Times

[Wilson Gray]

On Sep 9, 2004, at 5:20 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIOU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Connecticut accent" in the Times
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> At 04:44 PM 9/9/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>
>> This probably won't shock you, but I distinguish between "aural" and
>> "oral" primarily by context. Their joint use is rare enough in actual
>> speech that I've never been motivated to learn to distinguish them in
>> any other way.
>>
>> BTW, didn't everyone, or every college graduate, at least, once upon a
>> time, pronounce, e.g. "coral" and "Volvo" as [kOr at l] and [vOlvo]?
>> Nowadays, I seem to hear only [kor at l] and [volvo]. People no longer
>> identify "Carl Gables" as the loc of the U of Miami or identify the
>> "volv" of Volvo with the "volv" of "revolver."
>>
>> -Wilson Gray
>
> This college graduate didn't;  "coral" had [o] and "Volvo" had [O], and
> both still do.  (What does being a college grad have to do with it,
> anyway?]

I had in mind speakers of non-standard dialects who grow up in
isolation from mainstream America. Reading alone can expand such a
person's vocabulary, but it won't tell that person what the proper
pronunciation of that vocabulary is. It takes more than a high-school
diploma to accomplish that. Dictionaries are no help, since their
pronunciation keys are based on some formal, "standard" dialect
different from such a person's home dialect. Furthermore, many
seemingly "obvious" pronunciations that don't need to be looked up can
turn out to be less than obvious, in the broader world.

In any case, for me, "coral" with closed [o] in the initial syllable is
"new," in the sense that it wasn't widespread, if it existed at all,
during the '40's and '50's, when I was in school. Any educated person
of those years distinguished between "choral" and "coral" in speech as
well as in writing.

-Wilson Gray