eggcorn

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, 12 May 2005 20:54:35 -0400, Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIOU.EDU>
wrote:

>I oversimplify.  Tensing of the lax high and mid front vowels and the
>high back is common; hence 'poosh', 'feesh', and 'speycial' (and Rex's
>'meyzure' and 'pleysure').  These are South Midland/South; listen to
>Chuck Hagel and even Charles Grassley.

Also, I believe the North Midland region has some tensing of "short e",
but typically only before /g/ (as in 'eyg', 'leyg', 'peyg', 'beyg').  This
can be heard as far east (and as far north) as northwest New Jersey.  (For
such speakers, "eggcorn" is at its eggcorniest, since it's nearly
homophonous with "acorn".)

>They're spreading westward, I believe, so I'm not
>surprised that a Utahn has them also, though younger people and uppity
>college types might try to control them.

The Wikipedia article on American article suggests that tensing of short e
is indeed a salient feature of the Utah region:

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English/Standard_American_English#Utah
Utah:
* diphthongization of [E] as [EI]: "egg" and "leg" pronounced "ayg" and
"layg", "leisure" and "pleasure" pronounced "layzhur" and "playzhur".
-----


--Ben Zimmer