Idea/ideal

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 05:59 PM 1/21/2005, you wrote:
>On Jan 21, 2005, at 4:54 AM, neil wrote:
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       neil <neil at TYPOG.CO.UK>
>>Subject:      Re: Idea/ideal
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>--------
>>
>>>Sigh. To quote Leon, I hate to be the one to break it to you, Jerry,
>>>but I
>>>know librarians who say "liberry" and "liberrian." I'm afraid that
>>>"library"
>>>is going to follow "February" right down the tube.
>>>
>>>-Wilson Gray
>>Not to worry. Your missing 'r' finds it's unnecessary place in one UK
>>arts
>>commentator's pronunciation on BBC2 TV: she says 'drawring' for
>>'drawing'.
>
>Yes. That "r" is very common in the Northeast of the US - New England,
>in fact. Once, I overheard a conversation between two local women in
>Cambridge, Massachsetts. One, describing a trip out west, said to her
>friend, "While I was in California - "California," that's the way they
>pronounce it out there." At that time, I lived in California. I
>thought, somewhat indignantly, "WTF! Is she saying that Californians
>don't know how to pronounce the name of their own state?! How bad is
>that?!" I was able to relax, though, as soon as I recalled that
>Boston-area locals are themselves so inept at speaking English that
>*they* think that "California " is pronounced "Califo'nia"! This is the
>same - well, close enough to being the same for government work -
>pronunciation used by country folk in East Texas.
>
>-Wilson Gray

But the /r/ in 'drawring' is not a loss but an addition, akin to the /l/ I
cited earlier with reference to my grad student's pronunciation and
spelling 'drawling' (then a 6-year-old, if I didn't make that clear
before).  It's the same word-final or intervocalic insertion Dennis alluded
to earlier today, in this case, of a liquid.  (Compare 'oncet/twicet' and
'an' < 'a' for other insertions before vowels.)