Nicaragua

[David Bowie]

From:    Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> At 6:07 AM -0700 4/4/05, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

>>Nobody says "booeeant" for "bouyant," do they ?

> Nobody I know, but since nobody else has come out of the closet, I
> should confess that I do indeed have bisyllabic "buoy"s, pronounced
> like the aforementioned Bowie knives, ['bu:i].   (This is actually a
> long-standing word in my lexicon, since I was 4 or 5 and my family
> started spending summers in Long Beach, L.I., where the areas you
> were allowed to swim in were marked off by buoys.)  I don't see my
> "boo-ee"/"boy-ant" alternation as any more remarkable than those in
> e.g. "sign" vs. "signature" or "autumn"/"autumnal".   Oh, I also
> share everyone else's bisyllabic version of "Lifebuoy", which
> (besides being called that on all the commercials) is not really
> compositional for me--it's more like "Lifeboy" with a funny
> spelling--while "signal buoy" would retain the "boo-ee" pronunciation.

Exactly the same pronunciations here, all around--and 'buoy' pronounced
[bu.i] is most certainly a longstanding word in my lexicon, as well,
since as long as i can remember i thought it was fascinating that my
last name was pronounced exactly the same as those things in the Potomac
and the Chesapeake.

I *was* rather surprised, one time that i did some fieldwork around
where i grew up (northern Southern Maryland), to find both the [bu.i]
and [boi] pronunciations for 'buoy' in the community. I didn't notice
any sort of pattern to the pronunciations--older and younger speakers
both showed a mix, for example--but i haven't looked at it closely. I
may have to dig those old tapes out and recheck them now.

--
David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.