eggcorn/Utah speech

[FRITZ JUENGLING]

There are several explanations for your wife never having heard of it:
1-- it's newe to Utah English since your wife left.  Highly improbable.
2-- She just doesn't have a 'good ear' and has never 'heard' it.  Possible.
3--Most likely is that the i>I/ _ L is not a merger.  I had a Utah friend a number of years ago whose name was Peel (for me and everyone else in community  [pi:l]).  We all thought his name was Pill and called him that, to which he objected and corrected us, repeating [pIl]. I saw this episode play over and over again as he met new people.  After a while, I realized that Mr. Peel did not merge i and I. He certainly had laxing of i before L and it sounded like I.  To him, the distinction was as clear as day, but to every non-Utahn (and southern Idahoan), peel sounded like pill.  I finally got him to say both words and the distinction was ever so slight, but it was there.
Probably your wife is just used to the slight distinction that the rest of us don't hear.

BTW, I never 'heard' anyone say [pEn] for 'pen' until I was well into my 20s.
Fritz J

>>> stocklin at EARTHLINK.NET 05/12/05 02:20PM >>>
At 1:20 PM -0700 5/11/05, Fritz Juengling wrote:

>Here is an email that I received from our registrar--maybe it could
>be added to some eggcorn list somewhere (reminds me of Utah speech):
>
>If you have any questions please fill free to ask away.

My wife is a genuine Utahn, an actual great-great-granddaughter of
Brigham Young, though not a practicing Mormon. And she swears she
ain't never heard of this, or anything reminiscent.

Though she says "playzhure" for "pleasure" (I've ALWAYS heard it as
plehzhure, and I've lived in Chicago, Los Angeles, Oklahoma,
Scottsdale & Boston) and "mayzhure" for measure" (mehzhure). While
both pronunciations are in the online M-W, I'm curious if this has a
socioeconomic, cultural or regional component, as in "aunt" (ant vs.
ahnnt).

You say roCOco, I say rocoCO....
Lexy
Fishers