lawn-loan

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:47 AM -0400 4/21/06, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>Ron,
>
>Ah dint know you were doin folk perceptual dialect phonology. I
>suspect you are right. I'm always amazed that local Michiganders hear
>Ontario "about" (and imitate it) as "a boot")

And not just Michiganders.  I've always wondered why--even if the
misrepresentation is influenced by the need to come with a form that
has a transparent orthographic form (cf. "boid" and "earl" for
so-called Brooklynese), it wasn't "a boat" rather than "a boot" that
folks came up with for Canadian--that's at least closer, isn't it?

L

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org