I say "Lusitan-i-ay"

[Charles Doyle]

Unless "lackaday" and "Canada" were both pronounced with final /i/ or /I/, like "holiday" in some dialects and "Sunday" (etc.) in most?

--Charlie
__________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:58:46 -0800
>From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>Subject: Re: I say "Lusitan-i-ay"
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>
>Here's a nearly parallel case from the mid 18th C.
>
>  Lucy Terry Prince (1730-1821) is known as "America's first black poet";  she was of the generation just preceding the better known Phyllis Wheatley (1753-84).  Her only known poem, written when she was fifteen or sixteen (and praised by a recent critic for its "radical use of direct speech") memorializes the victims of an Indian raid near Deerfield, Mass., in 1746. It comprises four eight-line rhyming stanzas. The final stanza is as follows:
>
>  And had not her petticoats stopped her,
>  The awful creatures had not catched her,
>  Nor tommy hawked her on the head,
>  And left her on the ground for dead.
>  Young Samuel Allen, Oh lackaday!
>  Was taken and carried to Canada.
>
>  Though "stopped / catched" (most likely  /kaCt/) prevents the argument from being quite airtight, surely /e/ is the pronunciation intended.
>
>  JL

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